In the brave new world we live in, Dick Cheney is accused of wishing for Americans to choke on their own blood in order to demonstrate that his anti-terrorism policies are preferable to those of his successors in the White House.

And The American Prospect slanders me as anti-Muslim — and the New York Times blithely repeats the charge, with not so much as a phone call to see if I might like to go on record with a denial. (A fuller explanation is in my NRO column this week.)

My colleague Tom Joscelyn points out that “if anyone’s comments are anti-Muslim, it is The American Prospect’s. They are the ones pretending that Abu Zubaydah’s beliefs represent Islam, by elevating him to the status of an ordinary Muslim.

“They are claiming: (a) Cliff May thinks ‘torture’ may be necessary to elicit life-saving intelligence from terrorists such as Abu Zubaydah (nevermind, that this isn’t what you argued, you don’t buy their definition of torture), and (b) Abu Zubaydah = ‘Muslims’ (c) therefore, Cliff May believes Muslims should be tortured because they are Muslims.”

Tom adds: “This is either incredibly idiotic, or a flat out lie. High school students taking basic logic in an elementary math classes could see the holes in this ‘reasoning.’”