NRB vs. FrumForum: Gee, I Wonder Who’s Telling the Truth?

David Horowitz and David Swindle have decided to can one of NewsRealBlog’s contributors, Alex Knepper. Knepper, who also contributes to David Frum’s FrumForum, claims that he was punished because “Horowitz is not interested in posts that take Ann Coulter to task over the war in Afghanistan,” and Frum eagerly repeats Knepper’s claims, taking them as—surprise!—more evidence that right-wingers are circling the wagons around their “extremists.”

David Swindle responds to Knepper’s allegations here, explaining that the tone of his Coulter critique, not simply the act of critiquing her, was the issue with his final NRB submission, and that either way, he wasn’t simply fired over a disagreement over tone—it was the last in a string of disappointments (including some, um, interesting views about sex) from Knepper. Knepper fires back here.

As NRB’s editor, Swindle is in a much better position to respond to the specifics if he so chooses than I am, so I’ll leave that to him. But I do have a couple thoughts about which side has more credibility.

First, the idea that NRB can’t take criticism of Coulter is preposterous. I should know—my very first post for the website did just that.

Second, the website is extremely comfortable with passionate disagreement among contributors on a lot of issues, many of which are arguably bigger than what somebody thinks about a particular pundit. A few examples:

• David Swindle vs. John Nampion, David Kaplan, David Forsmark, & me on abortion
• David Swindle, Michael Van Der Gailen, & Walter Hudson vs. Mary Grabar & me on drug legalization
• David Forsmark vs. John Guardiano on Afghanistan
• David Swindle vs. me on culture
• Me, David Swindle, & Michael Van Der Gailen vs. John Guardiano on David Frum
• David Forsmark vs. Alex Knepper on sex
• Me & Jenn Public vs. Amy Siskind on feminism

Third, as I pointed out last week, we already know that David Frum’s standards of honesty are scandalously low – up to and including REPEATING SLANDER against people if it supports Frum’s agenda. Until Frum owns up to his past misdeeds, every word that appears on FrumForum should be read with extreme skepticism by the handful of readers who still waste their time there.

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Update on Hamas Sympathy at UCSD (Updated with Fresh Lies)

Jumanah Imad Albahri, the UCSD student who refused to condemn Hamas in a Q&A session with David Horowitz and said she’d be “for” a second Holocaust, is now claiming that the Hamas question is too complex to simply condemn or endorse unequivocally (they say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, but I say nuance is the first), and that she didn’t really mean “for it” in response to Horowitz’s question about a new a new Holocaust:

Towards the end of the exchange, I became emotional. I could no longer hear Mr. Horowitz speaking and so did not even hear his injection of Hezbollah’s credo of “rounding up” Jews in his last tangent.  I could no longer contain my anger at being implicitly and improperly labeled a terrorist, an anti-Semite, and a proponent of genocide. The answer I was coerced into giving grossly misrepresented my beliefs and ideologies.

My answer, “for it,” in the context in which it was said does NOT mean “for” genocide. I was referring to his initial question that asked me for my position on Hamas, a topic that for his own political reasons he was relentless in pursuing. “For it” was not a legitimization of Hezbollah’s or anyone else’s credo for that matter that Jews should be exterminated. In fact, Mr. Horowitz’s intent was to entrap me with his barrage of questions so that he could avoid answering my question, and construe any answer that I would provide as anti-Semitic, genocidal hate speech in order to further his political agenda.

The original video & transcript make clear that Albahri was not even remotely “entrapped” by anything Horowitz said.  Everything Horowitz said was clear, and her reply of “for it” sounds composed and deliberate.  Even if she didn’t really mean it (which seems questionable, given her Hamas apologetics), it’s telling that she cannot take responsibility for her own (supposed) failure to convey her “true” beliefs accurately.

(As for whether or not it’s reasonable to ask for a simple for/against judgment on Hamas, you tell me.)

David Swindle has another good question for our “victim”:

[I]f you oppose anti-Semitism and you oppose Islamists’ quest to instigate a second Holocaust what have you ever done to challenge these tendencies within the MSA itself and Islam as a whole? If you do not hold such views yourself, why are you a part of an organization who regularly hosts speakers who call for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jews?

UPDATE: David exposes even more lies from Albahri, including an amateurish attempt to talk up her credibility AS SOMEBODY ELSE.  Pathetic.

“If I support Hamas, because your question forces me to condemn Hamas. If I support Hamas, I look really bad.”

David Swindle has the scoop on a disturbing exchange between David Horowitz and a member of the Muslim Students Association at UC San Diego, in which the student refuses to condemn Hamas and says she’s “for” Hizbollah’s efforts to bring about a Jewish genocide:

The murderous, radical tendencies among campus Muslims is one of the most shocking, urgent stories of the decade, and yet today’s pitiful excuses for journalists are instead obsessed with whitewashing them and slandering peaceful Americans in their place.

Sorry, But Conservatism’s Still Not Dead

Yesterday Republicans took the governor’s mansions of Virginia & New Jersey, and Maine voted for true marriage.  David Horowitz is hailing Virginia’s ideological turnaround in particular as bad news for Barack Obama:

The 62-38 swing by 8:30PM EST  is a thirty point electoral swing since last November. And in a state whose northern heavily populated districts front on the White House lawn and whose news is national news. It’s early; New Jersey isn’t in. But the significance of this landslide cannot be understated. An electorally decisive part of the electorate who voted for Obama last November voted against him in Virginia today.

Which means: Obamacare is dead. For now.

Postscript: New Jersey, when you consider that Obama won the state by 15 points is also a landslide shift (20 points) — mainly among independents. By not governing as a centrist Obama has forfeited his margin of victory and doomed his health care reform. On CNN Carville said: If he doesn’t pass health care, the Democrats are going to get “slaughtered” because they will have shown that they can’t govern — they can’t get things done.

The Democrats’ only major victory is New York 23, where GOP bosses sunk gobs of money into a left-wing Republican, who was then trounced by the conservative third-party candidate Doug Hoffman.  Hoffman lost to Democrat Bill Owens, leading the usual suspects to blast the conservatives who rallied behind Hoffman.

Hoffman might not have been a dream candidate, but given how liberal (not to mention stupid and dishonest) the official GOP choice was, you can’t blame anyone for supporting him.  A four-point loss isn’t bad at all for somebody without experience as a candidate or a lawmaker; imagine how well he could have done if he had the support he should have had from the Republican Party all along (or if, at the very least, they hadn’t been actively working against him).

And besides, just because David Frum has decided to put politics over principle doesn’t give him the right to demand that the rest of us do the same.  The Republican Party’s self-preservation and expansion of power is not an end to itself—it’s a vehicle for advancing certain principles, and only has worth to the extent that it reflects or advances those principles.

A Special Announcement

Ladies & gentlemen, I’m thrilled to announce that I’m embarking on a new chapter in my career as a conservative pundit: today I have joined the great team of bloggers at David Horowitz’s NewsReal!  I’ll still be blogging here at CFO about the usual mayhem & merriment, but my contributions to NewsReal will focus on the goings-on in the world of cable news.

I’d like to express my most heartfelt gratitude to David Swindle, David Horowitz, and everyone else at NewsReal for this tremendous opportunity; rest assured I won’t let you down.

My friends, sit down, strap yourselves in, and enjoy the ride.