Walter Pincus files another story on the withdrawal of Charles Freeman from consideration of NIC chair, this one reporting the view in newspapers across the Middle East. Pincus begins his round up with this:
Pincus quotes several more just like that, including one quote from “senior political analyst” Khaled Batarfi that first appeared in the Arab News. Batarfi says “President Barack Obama . . . would have faced similar problems if his choice of Middle East envoy George J. Mitchell had gone through U.S. Congress.” Pincus ends the quote there, but you can read the full quote here. It goes on, “Mitchell would have lost in getting the US Congress approval. Despite being a Democratic Congress we know it is actually an Israeli Congress.” Of course, Freeman’s appointment didn’t go “through U.S. Congress.” Not only is Batarfi a propagandist, he appears to be ignorant of the most basic facts of our political system. Yet Pincus seems to believe his views have newsvalue, as if readers of the Post would be surprised to learn that some Sadi analysts thinks the Jews control the United States Congress. Elsewhere, David Duke has now weighed in on Freeman’s claim that it was the “Israel Lobby” — or what Freeman’s now calling the “Avigdor Lieberman Lobby” in a media blitz that seems designed to maximize the embarrassment this has all caused at the White House — that scuttled the appointment:
Makes you wonder why Pincus didn’t just go straight to Duke rather than risk having his quotes garbled in translation from the original Arabic.
