New York Times tries to out-Murdoch Murdoch
Does Rupert Murdoch have a mole among the editors of the New York Times? Or is the Times merely adopting the reflex that a Murdoch threat often seems to inspire: mimicry. (That’s how CNN fought back against Fox – it simply became more like Fox.)
Gracing Monday’s op-ed page is a contribution as deserving of space as would be a diatribe from David Duke: “President Apostate?” by Edward N. Luttwak.
Is the New York Times trying to steal readers from the New York Post?
After the Jeremiah Wright furor had the unintended consequence of nixing the “Obama’s a Muslim” rumor, the New York Times — with the implausible deniability of using the voice of an op-ed contributor — revives the so-called Muslim slur in its alternate form: Obama was a Muslim.
Daniel Pipes and other Islamophobes have been pushing this around for a while, but now it gets dignified by appearing on the pages of the “paper of record.”
Rather than struggling to express how infuriating I find it that the New York Times would publish a piece like this, I’m happy to say that I stumbled on someone else’s response – a response wonderfully prescient because it was written almost six months before Luttwak’s recycled bilge spilled out.
It came in a comment by Al-Hayat‘s Washington Bureau Chief, Salameh Nematt. He was responding to the same apostate argument, at that time being pushed by Nibras Kazimi of Talisman’s Gate:
Interesting point, but I believe the fact that Obama’s father abandoned him as a kid, and his mother raised him as a Christian absolves him of responsibility. That’s my fatwa for whatever it is worth. However, I believe an Islamic fatwa declaring him an apostate and calling for Muslims to spill his blood would probably guarantee him his party’s nomination for president.
Touché!
Salameh Nematt is a Christian Arab from Jordan.