Recently on The O’Reilly Factor, a moderate Canadian Muslim woman by the name of Raheel Raza spoke out against building the now infamous Ground Zero mosque. (She has previously written about her feelings as well.) First of all, her performance on O’Reilly’s show tonight was gangbusters. She blew him away with her extremely well articulated reasoning for being against the building of the Ground Zero mosque. To be specific, Ms. Raza stated that, “It’s confrontational, it’s in bad faith, and it doesn’t set up any real dialogue or discussion on tolerance.” Then, she went on to further state that, “Bleeding heart, white liberals don’t understand the battle that moderate Muslims face and how radical Islam has grown since 9/11 because of political correctness.” She was so terrific and spot-on that she, literally, left Bill O’Reilly speechless–all he could respond with was, “What a great answer!”. (You can watch Ms. Raza’s entire interview in the embed below.)

Folks, what this woman did on O’Reilly’s show took guts–I’m not going to mince words. You know that she’s going to catch all kinds of hell when she gets back home from “tolerant liberals” who can’t tolerate any apostasy from their PC ideology. We need to give Ms. Raza, and moderate Muslims like her with the courage to speak out against radical Islam, as much support as possible. It’s the right thing to do.

Update: This diary was originally posted a week ago in a Live Wire for The Minority Report, but it looks like I was quite prescient when I wrote that Raheel Raza was going to “catch hell” when she went back home to Canada. Yesterday, Kathy Shaidle of NewsReal reported that Ms. Raza has already received a threatening phone call from the property owner of the Ground Zero mosque. Again, now more than ever, the Raheel Razas of the Muslim world–with the fortitude to take a stand against radical Islam–need and deserve our support.



….[or High School Musical 4: The Beltway]

I’m sure that many of you have read David Brooks’ recent column in The New York Times (or should I say tirade), where he rants on and on about the evils of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. However, what Mr. Brooks also did in his column—either intentionally or unintentionally—was to display intense disdain for the listeners and viewers of the above entertainers and pundits when he wrote that those entertainers expressed themselves using “spittle-flecked furor” and that they “represent a mere niche of the Republican Party”. Robert Stacy McCain wrote an excellent blog about Mr. Brooks’ obvious disdain for conservatives titled, “David Brooks Hates You” that is a must read. But, I feel that David Brooks displayed another emotion in his dreadful column besides just hatred, and if you will bear with me, I would like to translate Mr. Brooks’ column by reading between the lines and deciphering what he really means.—

“For the life of me, I can not understand why all of those bitter, xenophobic, Bible-thumping clingers love O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity so much—particularly Limbaugh and Beck. I mean, why do hayseeds love those two chubby, former addicts more than me?! Don’t they all know that I am the favorite “conservative” of the liberal elites? Sure, O’Reilly , Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck might all have sky-high ratings and millions of listeners/viewers (and Beck has unheard of ratings for an afternoon slot), but I write for The New York Freaking Times!! And, I’m frequently on Meet the Press and PBS (shows so prestigious that they do not need actual viewers)—and people who listen to NPR love me (they can listen to me and get a free tote bag). That’s got to mean something. You see, I’ve got the much more sophisticated audience, so the Republican base should really appreciate me and listen to me more, instead of paying so much attention to what bloviators like Limbaugh and Beck have to say. But hey, all of us over at The Times realize that the Republican party is “no party of Einsteins”, so they really don’t know what’s best for them, do they? Oh well, you know what “they” say—a prophet is least appreciated in his own land.

Now, about Glenn Beck—God I hate that chubby, weeping Mormon, and all of his stupid viewers. Beck thinks that he’s so cool just because he was able to expose corruption in the NEA and ACORN, force Van Jones to resign, and inspire hundreds of thousands people to descend on DC in order to protest the Obama Administration’s big government programs. But so what? That’s nothing really. Don’t these bitter clingers who watch Beck know that I wrote “Bobos in Paradise”? Sure, nobody really read it, but all of the elite intelligentsia bought it to put on their bookshelves so that people who attend their cocktail parties would think that they were smart and well-read.

Furthermore, I am famous for my pearls of wisdom, such as saying that Sarah Palin isn’t ready to run for vice president because “experience matters” and calling her a “fatal cancer on the GOP” simply because she doesn’t think like me (see embed below). Now granted, Senator Obama had less real experience when he ran for president than Sarah Palin had when she ran for vice president. However, that’s really neither here nor there, because Barack Obama is much more like ME and runs in MY circles, whereas Sarah Palin does not—and that’s what those hayseeds who watch Beck, instead of listening to me, don’t understand. I mean, don’t they know who I think I am?

Also, I wasn’t a big fan of how Hannity, O’Reilly, and particularly Beck, yammered on and on about Van Jones until he resigned. (By the way, you all know that I really do have enough influence to get someone to resign if I wanted them to, right?) OK—so Van Jones may be a nutty 9/11 truther and a self-avowed communist, but he’s a friend of my colleague, Thomas Friedman. And besides, Van Jones is a lot like me in that we are both Ivy League educated elites. Furthermore, Jones also wrote a book that no one really read, but that elites like to display on their book shelves in order to create the impression being well-read. You know, come to think of it, maybe Thomas Friedman was on to something when he floated his idea of the US having a one party autocracy similar to that of China. I mean, it would be nice if me, Thomas Friedman and Van Jones ran things, because we know so much more than the troglodytes in the Republican base who listen to Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly and Hannity, but I digress.

And finally, I am no fan of the way O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck relentlessly attack Barack Obama, because I have a serious man-crush on him. We have exchanged emails and I was extremely impressed by him. Unlike the Republican base who likes Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity better than me, Barack Obama understands me and respects me. He can even read my mind.

Maybe President Obama will invite me to go with him to the next big White House gala. That would be awesome! We could talk all night about me, and then HIM, and then me again. (I just hope Obama doesn’t ask Chris Matthews to go with him instead of me. I know—next time President Obama calls me, I can three-way call Chris Matthews and I can trick him into saying something bad about Obama, but I digress.) Then, all of those bitter hicks in the Republican base can see how cool I really am, and then they will be sorry that they never listen to me.”

—Translation: You’re David Brooks and you’re jealous.

(H/T to Stuart Schwartz of The American Thinker for the title.)

This diary was originally posted on The Minority Report.