the officials have ruled "offsetting ad hominems." Bullsh*t. This guy came in here acting cool as a cucumber. It was all a policy dipute; serious stuff. Facts. Logic. Coherence. And then he got a little bit smug, and all of a sudden it's "and that b*stard is finally coming down, bwaa ha ha." No, sir, this is not a policy dispute. With those two, it's personal.
Any of Gaffney's footnoted specifics you'd like to address, yet?
Yes. Gaffney's "footnoted specifics" are the most blatant use of BS artistry I've seen in years, and I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself for trying to sell crap like this to your fellow Freepers.
Khaled Saffuri, executive director of the Islamic Institute, joined Rove in his car. Saffuri explained to him that the vote of the Arab-American community, which includes both Muslims and Christians, still was up for grabs. The community is prosperous and could be the source of considerable campaign contributions. If Bush would mention in public just a few of the issues that concern Arab-Americans, Saffuri told Rove, he would win their hearts, their minds and their support.22
Goodness gracious! How damning! How cunning these Moslems are!
While the thrust of this report sounds right, the evidence suggests Saffuri’s car ride with Rove was by no means the first time such a proposition had been discussed with the Bush campaign.
I'm floored. Gaffney has evidence that Saffuri spoke numerous times(!) with Karl Rove(!) about a proposition. Which was that Bush push a few hot buttons popular with Arab-Americans while he was out campaigning. Seriously: we needed footnotes for this? We need to use words like "evidence" and "proposition" to talk about a guy giving political advice on how to win votes by saying a few of the right things? He makes this sound like some kind of criminal activity. We're in on the secrets, now! We have evidence! They were in a car together! Imagine discussing votes with Karl Rove! Who'd have thunk it? Boy, we have the goods on that Norquist character now!
Suhail Khan was one of at least three Muslim outreach gatekeepers at the White House with whom Norquist has been associated over the years. I became aware of the intensity of the attachment when Norquist verbally assaulted me one day in the hallway outside our offices with the accusation that I had been calling Khan a terrorist. I assured him that I had done no such thing. Evidently, somebody else, though, had stumbled onto the fact that Khan’s late father, Mahboob Khan, was a prominent figure in the Islamist enterprise in America. It turns out that, among other things, he was the founder of a large Wahhabi center, mosque and school in Orange County, California.29
The New York Times revealed on October 23, 2001, that, in that capacity, Khan Sr. had hosted Ayman al-Zawahiri, reportedly Osama bin Laden’s right-hand-man in the al-Qaeda organization – not once, but twice in the 1990s.30 The first time, Zawahiri came under his own name, the second time he used an alias. In the course of his trips, the terrorist chief reportedly not only raised funds for al-Qaeda’s operations at Khan’s mosque but also purchased satellite communications equipment while in the United States.31
See that? al-Quaeda! Aliases! Terrorist chiefs! Grover Norquist! Booga Booga! If you did not notice that Gaffney had slipped into talking about some White House aide's late father, you are not our new Jeopardy champion. What kind of sleazy trick was that? Footnoted specifics? I've seen better misdirection plays in those tracts that explain how the Jooz rule ze vorld. When I see tricks like that, I know I'm looking at a hatchet job. The "60 Minutes" treatment of the ride in the car to talk about the "proposition" was a clue, but when they drag out the late fathers and booga-booga you with them, it's time to just throw the whole thing in the sh*tcan.
Why are David Horowitz and Hewitt Hewitt (Norquist's Harvard classmate) not vouching for him?
That's not the right question. They don't know any more than we know. The right question is, "Why is Norquist allowed anywhere near the White House?" They do know something we don't. They know what their own anti-terrorism strategy is. And they don't seem to be concerned about this. If they did seem to be concerned about it, I would put more credence in this. I don't claim to know one way or the other. All I know is that the people who are in fact running the National Security apparatus are happily watching this happen, and I don't believe for one minute that that is because they aren't looking. To hear Gaffney tell it, terrorists are just blithely waltzing into the White House because they're all too stupid over at 1600 Pennsylvania to know what's going on, and they need him -- Frank Gaffney -- to warn them about Grover and his creepy friends. I'm sorry, I didn't just fall off a turnip truck, so I don't believe that.
ever seen Khaled Saffuri at Norquist's table?
I wouldn't know Khaled Saffuri if I tripped over him. Is that the guy who met not once[1], but twice[2], with Karl Rove[3]? In the Secret Car[4]? To talk about, you know, the proposition[5]? Do you suppose the White House doesn't know who he is? Do you think you should run over and tell them, just in case?
