[Sabertooth]

*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.

The "offsetting ad hominems" point is, you have a personal stake in Norquist's fortunes. Therefore, even if it's personal between Gaffney and Norquist, you can't objectively wave away the particulars on the basis of that alone.

*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!

For the benefit of our fellow Freepers, let's take a look at the conclusion of that section of the article, which you truncated...

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. Indeed, the lure of such political dividends induced Governor Bush to hold a meeting in his mansion in Austin on May 1, 2000, not only with Alamoudi and Saffuri, but with other, immoderate Muslims, as well. As the National Journal reported:

It was the summer of 2000, and for George W. Bush, the meeting held the promise of an unusual but important endorsement for his presidential bid. Conservative activist Grover Norquist had persuaded the Republican nominee to sit down with leaders of the Muslim American Political Coordinating Committee, a confederation of four Muslim community groups.²³

In addition to Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council, the group included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad is another self-professed Hamas-supporter and, as will be discussed further below, its radical agenda and ties have recently been the focus of sharp, bipartisan criticism in Sen. Kyl’s Judiciary subcommittee.

Saffuri had also arranged for the Bush campaign to enlist Sami al-Arian, a well-known Florida-based activist – despite the fact that the professor made little secret of his radical Islamist sympathies – to help engender Muslim support in his state.²⁴ A photograph of Mr. Bush taken with al-Arian in March 2000 subsequently received considerable attention after the professor was arrested last February on 40 terrorism-related counts. Of particular concern are those alleging his functional direction over the past 19 years of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the most murderous terrorist organizations in the Middle East.²⁵

Not quite "booga booga" anymore, is it?

By asking that you address the particulars, I did not intend to convey "omit the context."

Grover Norquist and Khaled Saffuri associated with known "bad guys" (to use Norquist's term for them), American Muslims with open terror-sympathies, and brought them into contact with the Bush campaign and White House, both before and after September 11th.

Saffuri himself has many questionable positions and affiliations in his resume.

You've contended elsewhere that this is part of some pattern of surveillance by the Bush camp:

"You watch the known bads to build a model of what unknown bads look like. In order to do that, you have to let your known ones run around and be bad a little bit."

Are we to conclude that the Bush campaign was letting "known bads" get close to him, even before he was elected President, as part of some master strategery to root out Islamist terror sympathizers?

Do all campaigns do this?

[Nick Danger]

You've contended elsewhere that this is part of some pattern of surveillance by the Bush camp:

Nowhere have I said that. The "Bush camp" is not the national security apparatus of the United States.

But you raise an interesting question, and it is whether the Wahabbi lobby is a fifth column... or the sixth.

Our Mystery Correspondent tells us that "the government" has 27,000 hours of tapes of Sami Al Arian. Do the math.

How did this guy get into the White House? Grover Norquist? Wait a minute. Grover Norquist does not have the charter to conduct wiretaps in the United States. Those who did sat by and watched while the President of the United States got himself into a potentially politically embarrassing position. That's pretty scary. What did our patriotic heroes do with that information? To hear Gaffney tell it, they're ready to use it now to play 'gotcha' with Grover Norquist. What other political opponents have they played 'gotcha' with? Have they done it to Senators? Congressmen? Other Presidents?

Who are these people, and why didn't they tell the President? There were a hundred ways to whisper in somebody's ear over at the White House that this is not a guy you want in a photograph with the President. They didn't do that, did they? These patriotic defenders of the United States put the President in a position where he could be blackmailed... by them. You know what? That sucks. That is really scary. And now we have some Mystery Correspondent who claims to be in the middle of all this, and he thinks it's funny. He thinks playing after-the-fact "gotcha" with his political opponents, using national security information, is just something we do around here. He didn't even notice what that would sound like. He was proud of it when he wrote it.

How did Sami al-Arian get into the White House, Sabertooth? Don't tell me it was Grover Norquist. The people whose job it was to know this stuff knew it, but they were withholding that information from the President of the United States... allowing him to get himself into a compromising position.

Maybe you think that was just Patriotism in Action. I don't. I think it's terrifying. And I think that anybody who chortles over it who says that he's any sort of 'defender of the United States' is... really, really scary.

I think we need to back up here. So this domestic politics guy is a traitor, or a dupe, eh? And who is telling us this? Mr. National Security is telling us this. Mr. National Security is telling us that Grover Norquist associated with Sami al-Arian, known bad guy. How do we know Sami al-Arian is a bad guy? There are 27,000 hours of tapes on him. How long does it take to tape 27,000 hours of stuff? A minimum of three years, and that's if the guy is on the phone every minute, 24-by-7. Who had these tapes? Who knew this? If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Did Mr. National Security know that Sami al-Arian was a bad guy when he went to the White House and had his picture taken with the President, which Mr. National Security now chortles about? Apparently so.

I guess if I have to choose my villians, I'll take the guy who was duped over the guy who would set himself up to blackmail the President of the United States and call it patriotism. I'd hang that sumbitch.