Daniel Pipes could not be more right that the New York Times is being outrageously disingenuous in claiming that the Obama administration’s energetic Muslim outreach is a complete change in direction. As Dan recounts, “extraordinary gestures to Islam” were such standard fare in the Bush years that the Times said as much (the quote is from the Gray Lady).
Even more noteworthy, though, was the Times’s choice of sources for the Muslim community’s assessment of Obama. On the recent controversy over the president’s choice of Rashad Hussain to be his emissary to the dreadful Organization of the Islamic Conference, reporter Andrea Elliott turned to Keith Ellison (the name he is using these days), America’s first Muslim member of Congress, from Minnesota. If you read only the Times, that’s all you’d know about Ellison. But, happily, you can read Powerline, where the invaluable Scott Johnson has been following for years this character’s multiple aliases, ties to Louis Farrakhan, rabble-rousing on behalf of cop killers, consort with the CAIR, support for convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian, advocacy for other radical leftists such as convicted SLA operative Sara Jane Olsen, and so on. Reacting to the Times report, Scott’s got a Powerline post called “From Keith Ellison to Barack Obama” — well worth your time.