From his gimmicky “Home from Iraq by the Holidays” troop withdrawal plan to his filibuster yodel from the Swiss Alps, Sen. John Kerry’s free fall continues. In today’s Washington Post, Kerry now trots out this gem concerning the violent assault directed at a newspaper published in a free society.
“These and other inflammatory images deserve our scorn, just as the violence against embassies and military installations are an unacceptable and intolerable form of protest.”
As Marshall Wittmann over at the Democratic Leadership Council points out,
It is a delusion to believe that these mobs will be appeased by a moral equivalent condemnation of both the cartoons and the violence. Democrats, in particular, must make it clear that this has nothing to do with “offensive” cartoons and everything to do with a war against Western values.
Of course, Kerry’s moral equivalence characterization is exactly wrong. His weak-kneed remark will only embolden the radical elements and further undermine Islamic moderates. His words must be music to the ears of people like Mr. Abu-Laban, who, the Wall Street Journal reports, is under pressure “for results.”
Under pressure from young radicals for results, Mr. Abu-Laban, the Copenhagen cleric at the forefront of the campaign, and several others formed the “European Committee for Honoring the Prophet,” an umbrella group that now claims to represent 27 organizations across a wide spectrum of the Islamic community. (Moderate Muslims dispute this and say the group has been hijacked by radicals.) Mr. Abu-Laban, who grew up in Egypt and was arrested there in the early 1980s after being expelled from the United Arab Emirates for his preaching, took charge of writing statements for the group and communicating with Muslim ambassadors. He denies holding extremist views, but acknowledges hosting visits to Denmark by Omar Abdel Rahman, before his arrest in New York, where the blind sheik now is serving a life sentence in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Thank you Ohio voters!
