[R-G] The Anti-Muslim Smear Machine Strikes Again?

[Anthony Fenton]

  Posted October 10, 2008 | 05:55 PM (EST)
The Anti-Muslim Smear Machine Strikes Again?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-macdonald/the-anti-muslim-smear-mac_b_133695.html

In the midst of remarkably cynical election-time mud-slinging, the  
Obsession campaign is truly in a class of its own.

Over the past weeks, 28 million copies of the anti-Muslim propaganda  
film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West have been  
delivered to the doors of newspaper subscribers in swing states. The  
2006 documentary, which has been a mainstay of David Horowitz's  
"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," describes "radical Islam" as a menace  
comparable to Adolf Hitler that, according to the film's website, "is  
threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western  
civilization under the yoke of its values."

For the groups behind the film's distribution, the goal seems pretty  
clear: Scare the holy hell out of millions of voters in swing states  
about a possible Muslim takeover of the U.S. It's hard to see the  
targeting of electoral battlegrounds as anything other than an attempt  
to help John McCain get elected -- perhaps by capitalizing on the  
widespread whispering campaign that Obama is a "secret Muslim."

And one has to admit that the Obsession campaign's marketing plan has  
been quite slick. After all, what better way to disseminate hate  
propaganda than under the unassuming guise of a documentary film  
delivered in Americans' daily newspapers? A plan that, sadly, many  
newspapers were all too happy to go along with for the sake of  
corporate profits. While a handful of newspapers -- the Greensboro,  
N.C., News & Record, the Detroit Free Press, the Cleveland Plain  
Dealer and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- have taken the ethical  
stance of refusing to carry the DVD (the News & Record called it "fear- 
mongering and divisive"), some 70 papers, including the New York  
Times, have delivered it to their subscribers as a paid advertising  
supplement.

There has really just been one small glitch in the plan: The public  
doesn't seem to be buying it. Newspapers that carried the DVD have  
faced floods of complaints from readers, and the past week has seen  
protests and press conferences denouncing the film.

The problem, it would appear, is that many readers simply do not  
accept the notion their newspaper should provide a cover for hate  
propaganda. As one Durham, N.C., News & Observer reader put it, "I  
cannot believe that I was sent the hate-inflaming, fear-mongering  
video disk Obsession in my newspaper! What will you enclose next? KKK  
robes?"

The public, it turns out, is a much a tougher sell than the corporate  
media. Major corporate media outlets have for years been citing the  
anti-Muslim pundits featured in Obsession as "experts."

For example: Steve Emerson has been invited regularly on NBC and  
described as an "anti-terror expert," despite the fact his research  
has been repudiated many times over. This is an "expert" who initially  
blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Middle Eastern terrorists, and who  
is now going around claiming that the Bush State Department is  
collaborating with extremists.

And then there's Daniel Pipes. While he's repeatedly been cited by the  
media as an "expert" on Islam and the Middle East, he has warned that  
"the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and  
enfranchisement of American Muslims" entail "true dangers" for  
American Jews, and led a witch hunt against a public school official  
who was slated to run an Arabic-language charter school in New York  
City.

Just a month before a critical election, there are no signs that the  
anti-Muslim mud-slinging campaign is going away. In fact, the  
secretive nonprofit called the Clarion Fund behind the Obsession  
campaign just came out with a brand new DVD, The Third Jihad,  
featuring Mark Steyn -- who, as FAIR's new report documents, has  
warned of the "demographic decline" posed by Europe's emerging Muslim  
population, and suggests there are lessons for Europeans in the Balkan  
example of ethnic cleansing.

You can read all about Emerson, Pipes and Steyn in a new report that's  
just been released called "Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear,  
Bigotry and Misinformation" . The report profiles 12 top anti-Muslim  
pundits, including prominent talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly, Sean  
Hannity and Glenn Beck.

The media's long record of failing to challenge (and often enabling)  
anti-Muslim smears should leave us quite worried about how this final  
leg of election '08 will play out: Will the media continue to provide  
a platform to the anti-Muslim smear machine, or will they uphold  
standards of responsible journalism?