Brigitte Gabriel is an anti-Islamic extremist who gets frequent airplay on Loserville and CNN. |
You listen to the conservative agitators in the junk food media and you'll hear them bitch and bemoan about "radical" Islam and the president's inept response to the crisis in Iraq. Also you hear the ramblings about how you can't trust Muslims in the general public from the likes of Brigitte Gabriel.
Brigitte Gabriel gets a lot of airplay with those in the racist right. You hear her go on and on about how Muslims are extremists and these leaders in Washington aren't striking against them hard enough.
A week ago, at the Heritage Foundation's panel on Benghazi, an American Muslim woman was asking the question about hate crimes against her and others. Conservatives ducked the question and attacked her.
Media Matters for America which monitors misinformation and extremism from conservatives reports that the event was led by Andrew McCarthy, a conservative commentator and former federal prosecutor who recently released a book claiming that President Obama's response to the Benghazi attacks constitutes an impeachable offense. Several panelists at the forum have long records of inflammatory rhetoric about Islam.
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reports that Saba Ahmed, an American University law student, stood in the back of the room and asked a question in a soft voice. "We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there's 1.8 billion followers of Islam," she told them. "We have 8 million-plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don't see them represented here."
Panelist Brigitte Gabriel of a group called ACT! for America pounced. She said "180 million to 300 million" Muslims are "dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization." She told Ahmed that the "peaceful majority were irrelevant" in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and she drew a Hitler comparison: "Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazis drove the agenda and as a result, 60 million died."
"Are you an American?" Gabriel demanded of Ahmed, after accusing her of taking "the limelight" and before informing her that her "political correctness" belongs "in the garbage."
"Where are the others speaking out?" Ahmed was asked. This drew an extended standing ovation from the nearly 150 people in the room, complete with cheers.
"Yeah," audience members taunted, "yeah."
Ahmed answered quietly, as before. "I guess it's me right now," she said.
As hateful as they are, we must understand that Muslims reject terrorism.
Why don't conservatives reject the extremism coming from those who are anti-government?
Why don't conservatives reject the hateful rhetoric of some who have hatred towards Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and those who are LGBT?
Here's the video of Heritage Foundation's panel and their insult towards Ms. Ahmed.