From Michelle Malkin:
[It was only last October, you see, when Alberto Fernandez, newly minted by Secretary Condoleezza Rice as director for public diplomacy at State's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, made one of his obligatory "live dialogue" appearances on Islamonline.net. After cooing about the new Iraqi constitution, taking pains to stress that it expressly "recognizes the role of Islam" (thanks in no small part to State's labors), Fernandez proceeded straight to the required gushing over Qaradawi.
But wait a second. Hasn't Qaradawi has been banned from the U.S. for promoting terrorism? Surely the State Department can mount a full-throated defense of that, right? After all, isn't our moral compass supposed to be the Bush Doctrine the one that says "you're either with us or with the terrorists"? Is it really that hard for State to say Qaradawi is a disgusting character promoting a noxious agenda, rather than a model of moderation?
Apparently. Such a choice, our chic-sensitive public-diplomacy pirector opined, was "for the Muslim Umma to decide." As for the rest of us, Fernandez would brook no denying that it is "important to listen to intelligent and thoughtful voices from the region like Sheikh Qaradawi, ... an important figure that deserves our attention."
You can still see Fernandez's endorsement of Qaradawi right here.
You want to know how Fernandez responded to criticism of his reckless jihadi suck-up remarks? He sniffed that they were "minor" comments, which he made just to be "polite," and were much ado about nothing. Look:
He's still surprised how minor comments get amplified when he does grant a rare English interview. Take the way right-wing pundits singled out one response from a 50-question live forum he did on the English-language Web site Islam Online. Fernandez referred to revivalist Sunni Muslim scholar Yusuf al Qaradawithe founder of Islam Onlineas "a respected scholar and religious leader worthy of the deepest respect." The National Review denounced Fernandez for being a "chic-sensitive" apologist "gushing over Qaradawi," who is banned from U.S. soil for his alleged links to terrorist groups. "It was just some BS answer, just to be polite, and they picked up on that one thing," says Fernandez If this is "the face of the United States in the Middle East," we need to withdraw all State Department bureaucrats from the region, find out what else Fernandez and his Arabic-speaking colleagues have been telling the Arab media, and boot them off the airwaves. Permanently. If showing "politeness" towards suicide bomb-embracing jihadi clerics and showing contempt for our country on enemy airwaves is how we plan to win "hearts and minds," we're screwed.]