[snarks_when_bored]

Bawer is gay, so he's talking his book, as Wall Streeters say; however, he's right about D'Souza's inexplicable soft-pedaling of some of islam's more depraved aspects. As usual, Robert Spencer nails it:

The D’Souza Follies

[true_blue_texican]

bump for later read

[PGalt]

As usual, Robert Spencer nails it

He certainly does! BTTT!

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Spencer on Bennett's show right now.

[Steel Wolf]

D'Souza is a great guy, but his inexplicable soft-pedaling, as you call it, is quite explicable. He's toeing the Bush Adminstration line. The one that seeks to avoid global conflict with Islam by whitewashing the bad parts, attacking the hostile parts, and stretching reality to find common ground.

If you think about it, D'Souza's position is simply a more in-depth restating of President Bush's "It's a religion of peace" rhetoric. Certainly, D'Souza deserves no less and no more criticism than the President himself. He's trying to prevent a global war by making friends out of enemies. I don't know how effective it will be. As the old saying goes, it may be black, but you can't polish a turd. The "Islam and the West have a lot in common line" requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, perhaps too much to actually get off the ground.

[Eurotwit]

Thanks, Spencer is spot on IMHO and thorough.

In fact, there was an article in the NY Times the other day, about "islamophobic" books where both Spencer's and Bawer's books were mentioned. Bawer's "While Europe slept" is nominated for some critical award, and the ususal suspects are up in arms :-)