Sticker shock [muslim ss bumper stickers - liberal hate of hate against haters]

Washington Post ^ | Friday, January 31, 2003 | Al Kamen

[lavaroise]

By Al Kamen Friday, January 31, 2003; Page A25

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, which featured Vice President Cheney as its opening luncheon speaker yesterday, one of the various exhibition booths hawking paraphernalia had some virulently anti-Muslim vinyl bumper stickers, for $3.95, including one that said: "No Muslims -- No Terrorism."

rest of the article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3956-2003Jan30.html

[Hobsonphile]

I have to be honest- this sticker really disturbs me. I wonder if this is the image we want to present to the world, especially when there are Muslims out there on our side, the Iraqi Americans who attended our October 26 counter-rally in DC and the Iranian students demonstrating bravely for freedom among them.

However, I know egregious media bias when I see it, so I was moved to point it out to Andrew Sullivan, whom I respect as a pundit.

This appeared on Andrew Sullivan's blog:

PRO-WAR EXTREMISM: I figured some of this might go on at CPAC. Demonizing the religion of Islam, making no distinction between the vast majority of its believers and the few fanatics, actually helps the enemy. Yes, we should call Muslims to account for the extremism and violence in their midst. Yes, we shouldn't be blind to some of the violent imagery and and rhetoric in Islam. Yes, we shouldn't buy the white-washing of dangerous trends in contemporary Islam that some peddle. Yes, we need to challenge the fusion of politics and religion in much of contemporary Islamic thought. But sheer religious bigotry needs to be condemned by those of us in favor of the war just as extremism needs to be condemned by those in the opposite camp.

Here is my response. We'll see if it gets published on the letters page:

Does an offensive sticker really symbolize the whole of the Conservative Political Action Conference to the Washington Post? Why is no one highlighting the fact, also mentioned in the Post article, that it was AN ATTENDEE who complained? Why is no one covering the speakers or the respected institutions in attendance?

I have been attending CPAC for the past few days, and for the benefit of your audience, I must emphasize that ninety-nine percent of the organizations in attendance are serious, thoughtful groups. Among them are the Heritage Foundation, Ward Connerly's American Civil Rights Institute, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, MEMRI, and others.

The attendees are equally thoughtful. Many of them are students such as myself. Why won't the Post cover the questions asked of the speakers by their audience?

Compare this to the coverage of the anti-war rally on the 18th in Washington. The big media outlets took pains to emphasize that the crowd was made up of families, grandmothers, and middle Americans. I was there, and I know this to be a distortion. The families, grandmothers, and middle Americans were there, but the VAST majority of the marchers were Communists of various stripes who were unashamed to carry the banner for A.N.S.W.E.R.

Perhaps while voicing concern regarding the bigots on the right, you should also be awarding the Washington Post the Raines Award. The bias here certainly merits the "egregious" label.

But, because bigotry on the right concerns me enough as a principled conservative, I will attempt to speak to the organizers on the final day of the conference (tomorrow) to register my own complaint, and I will encourage my friends to do the same.

Do you think sincere leftists will, in the same spirit, actively disavow A.N.S.W.E.R. and start their own movement? From my viewpoint, it doesn't seem likely.