Category: Atlas Shrugs

Pamela Geller and the Scandalous
Bikini of Right-Wing Extremism

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Evidently taking their cue from the Washington Post, now the British Guardian has decided that the most newsworthy thing about conservative blogger Pamela Geller is that she has been seen in public in a swimsuit:

Pamela Geller is on a mission to save the free world and she’s doing it, on this occasion, in a bikini as she writhes around in the sea.
“Here I am in my chador, my burka,” Geller jokes to the camera in one of a string of video blogs campaigning against Islamic “world domination” shortly before kicking back in the waves.

The video is from August 2006 and out of all that Geller has done in the ensuing four years — including authoring The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America with her frequent collaborator, Robert Spencer — evidently nothing lends itself so easily to a feature lede as her bikini moment.

Geller laughed about this treatment when I spoke to her on the phone last week, and at her blog says, “It is comedy. It is to laugh. It is to cry.” Geller told me she was amazed at how she has been singled out as the instigator of controversy over The Lower Manhattan Islamic Cultural Center That the Associated Press Won’t Call the “Ground Zero Mosque” Anymore.

Geller insists she was just one of many involved in the opposition, and says the hundreds who turned out for a June 6 protest deserve credit for making the mosque one of the biggest political stories of the summer. Still, her TV appearances — including CNN, MSNBC and multiple appearances on Fox News — have made her the best-known face of the anti-mosque forces, which is why she’s now the subject of hostile coverage.

Latest example: Max Blumenthal is blaming Geller for an “incident” at a Sunday rally she had nothing to do with. Her rally will be Sept. 11.

Pamela Geller Bikini ‘Scandal’?

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Remember my joke — and it was a joke, in case you didn’t realize it — that Marcela Hoeven looking good in a bikini was a “scandal”? The Washington Post evidently thinks the same thing of Pamela Geller:

The most colorful — and perhaps most visible — activist at the moment is Pam Geller, a former New York Observer publisher who has appeared in a bikini and a super-tight Superman costume challenging Islam. . . .

It’s rather telling that the Post‘s Michelle Boorstein considers it so vitally urgent that readers know Geller has (gasp) been photographed in a swimsuit. And when you read the rest of the story, it’s a long run for a short slide: Conservatives read conservative blogs (shock) and so forth.

BTW, Pamela’s success is driving Charles Johnson nuts:

Yeah, all “these freaks” like . . . uh, Howard Dean.

UPDATE: Writing at Outside the Beltway, Steven L. Taylor misleads:

Scapegoating is an ugly thing. And whatever else this is, this is scapegoating: it is blaming one group of people for the actions of others.

No, this isn’t scapegoating. It would be scapegoating if Muslims were being blamed for widespread social or economic woes, the way Hitler made Jews the convenient explanation for all of Germany’s ills after World War I.

Nobody is blaming Muslims for the recession. Opponents of the Cordoba House have very specific criticisms, and ignoring those criticisms is not the same as refuting them.

Let us, however, distinguish between longtime opponents of the Cordoba House — including Pamela Geller, who has been on this issue since Day One — and some of those who have jumped aboard the bandwagon. Many of those who have scoffed at opponents of Cordoba House are doing so based on a certain error of logic: “If Fox News is covering it, and Republican politicians are talking about it, the story must therefore be illegitimate.”

If you think Newt Gingrich is demagoging the Ground Zero Mosque story, or that Fox News is exploiting it, then by all means denounce the demagoguery and exploitation. But do not make the mistake of assuming that an issue is illegitimate, simply because it is being promoted by people you don’t like.

Such an assumption is a variety of ad hominem fallacy, which you should take care to avoid when you’re accusing others of scapegoating.

Obama’s Hollywood Disaster

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ROSSYLYN, Va. — Just as I predicted, President Obama’s Hollywood fundraiser produced a traffic catastrophe in Los Angeles:

While I was in Los Angeles yesterday, I got a call from my friend Joe Fein, who told me he wouldn’t be able to make it to an event featuring Pamela Geller, author of The Post-American Presidency, that he had hoped to attend.
“They’ve shut down Olympic Boulevard!” Joe said in outraged tones, explaining that the major east-west thoroughfare had been closed to allow President Obama’s motorcade to proceed from Los Angeles International Airport to a fundraising dinner with Nancy Pelosi at the home of one of the president’s liberal Hollywood friends.

It turned out that Evan Sayet was right in advising that my trip from the San Fernando Valley down the 405 to LAX would not be delayed by the presidential visit, but pity those Angelenos who were trying to travel east-to-west or vice-versa:

Someone apparently decided that Obama’s $30,000-a-plate dinner at the house of “West Wing” producer John Wells necessitated shutting down most of the major east-west through streets in Los Angeles. . . .
If the President was unable to get to John Wells’ house without causing this level of disruption, then perhaps he should have done his fundraising somewhere else . . .

A reporter for the Los Angeles Times quoted one reader’s comment:

“I was an Obama supporter, but … was stopped by police from crossing Olympic to get home … during my daily dog walk. . . . I’ve lost all belief in his judgment. Can he really think he’s more important than the tens of thousands of people trying to get home to their families?“

Yes He Can!

UPDATE: Joe Fein, who has been trying to get the dysfunctional California GOP to fight for votes in L.A., says Obama’s Mother Of All Traffic Jams has made his job easier.

UPDATE II: Smile and say, “Charles Johnson!”

Professor Donald Douglas has more on last night’s L.A. event with Pamela Geller. I was very impressed with the turnout. Among the 250 or so in attendance was a woman named Rita who, when I asked her last name, became fearful: “Don’t put my last name in there. I’m in the entertainment business. You do that” — i.e., identify yourself as a Republican in Hollywood — “and you’re blacklisted.”

BTW, to explain the Rosslyn dateline on this post: I’m blogging from the offices of The American Spectator, whence I’ve come to spend a few hours because my wife can’t pick me up until this afternoon. Let me suggest that you should subscribe today, because sooner or later I’m going to file another expense report and . . . well, talk about a nightmare!

Thanks to all those who’ve contributed to the Shoe Leather Fund to help keep me traveling during this campaign year. My current plans are to visit Delaware next, before taking a trip down South. And thanks, of course, to Mrs. Other McCain for putting up with my vagabond existence. I should point out that my lovely bride recently got her own Twitter account. She doesn’t Tweet much, although she did suggest she’s looking forward to my homecoming, IYKWIMAITYD.

UPDATE III: Obama’s departure was no less disastrous than his arrival, a Twitter friend informs me:

Obama arrived in rush hour traffic, and he left this morning in it, too. Everyone in my office was late to work this morning.

And in the comments, our California friend Jehuda the Rhetorican says:

It is very likely POTUS saved or created thousands of GOP voters through the traffic jams he unleashed last night. . . . I was in one of them. Not fun.

“Fun”? Whoever said Hope and Change would be fun?

UPDATE IV: Wow, they’re really angry out there:

One man, who did not want to give his name, said it had taken his wife four hours to drive home from Brentwood. Another man trying to walk west on 6th Street to his office shouted at the officers blocking his way and told them he wished he had voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential race.

Heh.

Pamela Geller Goes Hollywood

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LOS ANGELES — Frankly, I didn’t think it could happen, and blogged to that effect. But when I stopped by for a cup of coffee with Evan Sayet, he told me that it was entirely possible to attend the Pamela Geller/Robert Spencer event at 7 p.m. and still make it to LAX in time to catch the red-eye flight back east. So I did.

Pamela Geller and America’s Favorite Funny Man, Evan Sayet.

Donald Douglas will file this photo under “Rule 5.”

America’s Favorite Funny Man kills ’em.

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller on stage at the Skirball Cultural Center.

Here you can see the full-house crowd for Monday’s event, sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.

Pamela Geller was in an especially good mood, considering the latest news about the Ground Zero Mosque. And she was laughing about the fact that Charles Johnson was going totally berserk:

Something about a “dish best served cold,” y’know. Hey, CJ, is Harry Reid a “hateblogger,” too?

Well, my flight starts boarding in five minutes. Goodbye, Hollywood — I’m going home!

Congratulations, Pamela Geller!

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The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America just went into its second printing, Pamela told me last night in a phone conversation. 

Geller is in Los Angeles to speak tonight (7 p.m.) with Robert Spencer at the Skirball Cultural Center in an event co-sponsored by Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Pamela told me that they are planning a 9/11 rally against the Ground Zero Mosque with Newt Gingrich. She is quoted in a Wall Street Journal story today:

Conservative blogger Pamela Geller, founder of a group called Stop Islamization of America and a vocal opponent of the mosque near Ground Zero, blasted Mr. Obama in a statement. The president, she said, “has, in effect, sided with the Islamic jihadists.”

It’s as if Obama is trying to help Pamela sell books — as is Hamas:

A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero — insisting Muslims “have to build” it there.

Having Hamas on your side isn’t exactly a formula for success in American politics. Obama has screwed the pooch on this one. This morning I was watching MSNBC, where Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas) was telling Obama to keep his presidential nose out of New York’s business and Pat Buchanan was opposing the mosque saying, “This is sacred ground!” Clearly, Pamela is winning this argument.

UPDATE: Professor Donald Douglas plans to attend tonight’s L.A. event with Geller and Spencer.

Lefties Go Nuts as Anti-Defamation League Opposes Ground Zero Mosque

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Pamela Geller is surely laughing herself silly at this spectacle:

The Anti-Defamation League, which describes itself as “the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry,” released a statment this morning opposing the building of the 13-story mosque near Ground Zero.
“In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right,” says the ADL.

OK, so the ADL — historically, a liberal organization — feels compelled to side with Pamela and all those right-wingers who opposed the mosque. As you might expect, the Left is not taking this news cheerfully:

ADL: Some opponents of Ground Zero mosque are bigots, but we should let them win anyway
— Greg Sergeant, Washington Post

ADL Condemns, Enables, Anti-Muslim Bigotry
— Adam Serwer, American Prospect

And perhaps sweetest of all:

The ADL Backs Palin Against The Cordoba Mosque
— Andrew Sullivan, Atlantic Monthly

Will update when Charles Johnson reacts. Here’s a preview:

Media Matters: Arbiters of Legitimacy?

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Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has bulldogged the Ground Zero mosque story from Day One, helping organize and promote opposition to the Islamicization of Lower Manhattan. So how does the Left respond?

Memo to media: Pamela Geller does
not belong on national television

Media Matters is telling TV producers not to give airtime to the woman who is arguably the most effective activist on this issue. So if the producers don’t book the attractive, informed, impassioned Geller, who will be on TV to present the case against the Ground Zero mosque? Either someone less knowledgeable and persuasive or no one at all.

In other words, Media Matter is trying to suppress dissent. And the smear of Geller is not an isolated example. Consider this headline:

When does Fox News’ ugly
race-baiting become the story?

That’s about the Black Panthers voter-intimidation case, which was dropped by the Justice Department amid accusations from a department whistle-blower that Attorney General Eric Holder had intervened on behalf of the nightstick-wielding Panthers. Endeavoring to dismiss the story as insignificant, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters spews a string of pejoratives:

. . . right-wing race baiting and fear mongering . . . hysterical far-right cries . . . right-wing wrath . . . Obama’s right-wing critics were leveling astonishing, race-baiting charges . . . uncontrollable race baiting . . . the very ugly context and the very ugly rhetoric that’s being pumped out by Fox News and other far-right commentators. . . . more right-wing furor . . .  the GOP Noise Machine and its ability to make life miserable for journalists who tell the truth about the far-right conservative movement in America today . . . radical and offensive rhetoric they employed against Obama  . . . the hysterical, relentless race-baiting  . . . dark, hateful comments . . .

This is a style of rhetoric we might call Argument by Assertion: Repetitively employing terms like “far-right” and “race-baiting” as if saying the same thing over and over made it so.

Sensationalism, Inc.

Let us stipulate that Fox’s coverage of the New Black Panther Party may be making a mountain out of a molehill, sensationally exaggerating a story beyond its legitimate significance. Let us also agree, however, that the news media do such things routinely.

How significant was Natalie Holloway’s disappearance? What were the national implications of the Caylee Anthony case?

And if we wish to isolate politically-motivated sensationalism, why did the murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd get such saturation coverage? The Shepard case became a cause célèbre for the gay-rights movement, while Byrd’s death was touted as proof that a certain Republican governor of Texas was indifferent or hostile to black civil rights.

Surely Eric Boehlert never criticized networks for covering those stories in that context, yet unleashes a torrent of epithets — ugly rhetoric! hateful comments! — at Fox News for its coverage of the Panther case.

Is it only the “far right” that finds the Panther case troubling? Or are there legitimate reasons to worry that the dismissal of the case is, as many conservatives contend, significant of an unwillingness of the Obama administration to pursue accusations of discrimination that don’t fit the liberal agenda?

Was “race-baiting” the only motive for Fox News’ coverage of the story? Or could it be that the Panther story has an intrinsic audience appeal — a sort of man-bites-dog angle on civil rights — that makes for good TV?

Eric Boehlert wants to rule such questions out of bounds, asserting that anyone who suspects the Obama administration of racial unfairness can be peremptorily dismissed as engaged in hysterical far-right race-baiting: Nothing to see here. Move along.

Messages and Messengers

As with the attack on Geller, by accusing Fox of racial demagoguery, Media Matters is attempting to discredit the messenger, so that the mainstream media has a ready-make excuse to ignore any message that Eric Boehlert doesn’t like.

And notice how this works: If Fox covers a story that other networks ignore, the attack is directed at the network. However, if MSNBC books a guest (Geller) to discuss a story that it had otherwise ignored (the Ground Zero mosque), Media Matters screams bloody murder that this one guest is unacceptable.

Media Matters is attempting to exercise the power of an arbiter, to arrogate to itself the authority to decide which stories are newsworthy and which sources are credible, and it does so through intimidation. The message to news producers and editors couldn’t be clearer: Give serious coverage to a story we don’t like, and we’ll unleash these attacks against you.

Remember Liz Mair’s theory that David Weigel’s Journolist e-mails were made public because Weigel had dared to dispute the Left’s narrative that portrayed Rand Paul as a racist. Weigel wasn’t toeing the line. He hadn’t cooperated in the Meme-O’-th’-Day agenda and, by speaking out, had helped kill the meme that Democrats were employing to tremendous advantage. Was that why he became the Luca Brasi of MSM reporters?

Hey, I’m just askin’ questions . . .

Other than class warfare — the GOP as “party of the rich” — no message has been more electorally productive for Democrats than the “R is for Racist” meme (which seems to be shaping up as the MSM’s pre-emptive explanation for any Republican success  in November). By furiously attacking stories that disrupt or distract from that message, Media Matters is shaping the political battlefield to favor Democrats.

Don’t wait for the network news exposé of this partisan project operating under the guise of a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit, unless you’re prepared to wait until hell freezes over.

Go, Pamela Geller

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by Smitty

May Fortune smile on this wonderful, courageous lady:

Mayor Bloomberg, this blog has no insight into who’s pulling your strings, but you need to pull your head out, mister. Hopefully New Yorkers resist this awful Cordoba Mosque, and metaphorically toss you into Hell’s Gate at the next election.