It’s ridiculous for Dennis Blair to claim that context can explain away the many troubling and provocative statements of Charles Freeman, but I will take one Freeman quote out of context and I challenge any of his defenders to find a context that would make it a reasonable remark — a context that would make it something other than shameless shilling for his Saudi sponsors. From a 2002 panel discussion at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:
Could a person possibly make that claim unless they were in the pay of said crown prince. And if Freeman really believes this to be true, doesn’t that alone disqualify him from holding a senior position in this administration? Meanwhile, for all his profound self-reflection, Crown Prince Abdullah, now King Abdullah (or as Freeman likes to call him “King Abdullah the Great”) will allow a 75-year-old woman to be lashed and sent to prison for having two men in her house — one of whom she had cared for as a child and the other who was delivering bread.
