Replies

You have not exactly convinced me YOU are to be believed.

If I think someone is acting like part of a fifth column, or doing the sort of things Norquist is ACCUSED of doing, then I don't go public, I go the FBI and keep at it until someone takes it seriously.

You expect me to believe that George W. Bush's White House is as cavalier about who meets the President as Bill Clintons? For all intents and purposes, your claims about Rove are just that. Never mind what David Frum observed in his time at the White House (as his book points out).

I'm going to be very blunt. I think that the concerns about judgement/national security are only part of the equation. I think that part of this is taking down some folks they don't like.

It is obvious that certain conservatives do not care for Karl Rove or Grover Norquist. They seek to have them discredited for whatever reason - I suspect it is mostly ideological differences motivating this, and that is part of the "bad judgement" that is being railed against.

And if it is bad judgement, why go public? Why create a public split with these public allegations?

It is obvious Rove and Norquist are not liked and that they are seen as part of the problem. I do not think that is sufficient grounds for such a campaign, and I question the motives of those who seek to continue this campaign aaginst Norquist.

If I think someone is acting like part of a fifth column, or doing the sort of things Norquist is ACCUSED of doing, then I don't go public, I go the FBI and keep at it until someone takes it seriously.

1) Get it straight, Norquist has done them and has and continues to lie about them. Both have been amply demonstrated hereabove and elsewhere.

2) I work with the Bureau every day. I've warned you before about assuming and asserting things you don't know.

3) You say that's what you would do because, as you've amply demonstrated, you don't have a clue how the system works, you have no evident personal or institutional equities in this.

4) This was first taken public by Norquist. HELLO!!!!!!!!!

5) This is one of several necessary avenues and it is working. When NR, Horowitz,Gaffney, Cal Thomas,and many others similar standing publicly call attention to this problem and denounce it (see NR's summer cover banner, "Grover Norquist Radical Islamist Problem" by Byron York). It educates a lot of people and is a part of closing this sad sideshow down. Law enforcement is another. Grover's persistence and rude fliberttygibbet attitude toward these same people will also help. If you were in serious Washington and foundation and media cirlces, you would know all of this, and you would be way past things like "If" and "ACCUSED" and "DUPE" ad nauseum ad infinitum.

5) A small group of associates, most of whom are Freepers, outed many of the Clinton China scandals the same way and you loved it. We did it in our respective Congressional, government agency and think tank roles, and we stoked these sorts of venues and Drudge and Inforwar, etc. That is what one does in this business, according to need. I would have thought that you had at least a clue about that much. You seem to see just the hair of the elephant and think your holding a rope to heaven; you are clearly missing the bigger picture, even when it's broken down for you and all the dots are color coded. Oh well.

"I question the motives of those who seek to continue this campaign aaginst Norquist."

I question your motives for questioning my motives.

"And if it is bad judgement, why go public? Why create a public split with these public allegations? "

For umpteenth time: because serious experience policy and opinion leaders in DC and the movement believe this is a necessary tool. Simple as that.

"For all intents and purposes, your claims about Rove are just that"

Well I don't know what is obvious to you or how, but Gaffney and any number of us actually talk to Rove and deal with people who interview him, etc, and have corespondence, etc. What we know is what we know. Unless you want to assert we are lying. Or maybe "racists and bigots" too?
Again, rather than bragging about what you don't know, why don't you keep it to yourself rather than making bizarre assertions and implied insults out of the thinning air?

You expect me to believe that George W. Bush's White House is as cavalier about who meets the President as Bill Clintons? For all intents and purposes, your claims about Rove are just that. Never mind what David Frum observed in his time at the White House (as his book points out).

Yes, never mind what David Frum observed...
Here now is where the story gets painful for us Bush Republicans. Not only were the al-Arians not avoided by the Bush White House - they were actively courted. Candidate Bush allowed himself to be photographed with the al-Arian family while campaigning in Florida. Candidate Bush denounced the immigration laws that detained - and ultimately deported - Mazen al-Najjar. In May 2001, Sami al-Arian was invited into the White House complex for a political briefing for Muslim-American leaders. The next month his son, Abdullah, who was then an intern in the office of Congressman David Bonior, joined a delegation of Muslim leaders at a meeting with John DiIulio, head of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. After the group entered the complex, a red flag belatedly popped up over the al-Arian name, and the Secret Service ordered him out of the complex. The entire delegation marched out with young al-Arian - and soon afterward, President Bush personally apologized to the young man and ordered the deputy director of the Secret Service to apologize as well.
(Young al-Arian published a strikingly disingenuous account of this experience in the online edition of Newsweek on - note the date - September 14, 2001. Newsweek - a magazine normally celebrated for its rigorous fact-checking - permitted young al-Arian to claim on its site that he had been "singled out" only because of his "name and physical features." Now in one sense that's true - had Abdullah al-Arian been named Abdullah al-Shmarian, nobody at the Secret Service would have troubled him. But al-Arian and Newsweek cooperated in leaving the reader with a very false impression that he had been the victim of some kind of bigoted anti-Muslim dragnet.)
The al-Arian case was not a solitary lapse. The Bush campaign in 2000 very determinedly reached out to Muslim voters. Indeed, Muslim-Americans may have tipped the election to George Bush. One survey suggests that the 50,000 Muslim voters of Florida, normally staunch Democrats, reacted to Al Gore's selection of Joe Lieberman as his running mate by voting 80% for Bush. That outreach campaign opened relationships between the Bush campaign and some very disturbing persons in the Muslim-American community. Many of those disturbing persons were invited to stand beside the president at post-9/11 events, like his meeting with Muslim community leaders at the Massachusetts Avenue mosque.
Over the past year, the White House has become much more selective about its invitations. More selective - but still far from selective enough.
There is one way that we Republicans are very lucky - we face political opponents too crippled by political correctness to make an issue of these kinds of security lapses. At least - so far. But who knows? The day may come when some Democrat decides he cares more about winning elections than he does about liberal pieties. Against the day, is it too much to ask a wartime White House - please, please choose your friends more prudently!
Correction
Memory failed me on point above: Sami al-Arian's visit to the White House occurred in June 2001, not May; his son's visit was later in the same month.
David Frum's Diary - National Review Online
FEB. 21, 2003: THE STRANGE CASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN