The New York Times‘ Maureen Dowd is an astute commentator who sometimes think she’s cleverer than she is (it would be nice, for a change, if she actually left Washington and saw how the average reader viewed embedded columnists such as herself.)
Her latest, however, on the rantings of Republican Presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani – and let’s not forget that this charming fellow has master Arab hater Daniel Pipes on his team – starts beautifully:
Now comes “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.”
David Horowitz’s conservative Freedom Center has designated next week the time to “break through the barrier of politically correct doublespeak that prevails on American campuses, if you want to help our brave troops, who are fighting the Islamo-Fascists abroad.”
The Freedom Center’s terrorism awareness program is urging college students to stage sit-ins outside the offices of women’s studies departments to protest “the silence of feminists over the oppression of women in Islam” and to distribute pamphlets on Islamo-Fascism. Their titles include “The Islamic Mein Kampf,” “Why Israel is the Victim” and “Jimmy Carter’s War Against the Jews.”
Of course, a love for Israel is a pre-requisite for all candidates – whether manufactured or otherwise – but sometimes this affection goes a little too far:
But Rudy seems out of the Republican mainstream on even giving lip-service to Palestinian aspirations. He has no patience for buttering up the Arabs, or the Republican men’s club attitude represented by Saudi-loving Bush senior and James Baker that has always favored a more “even-handed” policy in the Middle East.
Mr. Baker once reportedly justified the tough policy of the Bush 41 administration toward Israel with the notorious comment to a colleague: “[Expletive] the Jews. They didn’t vote for us anyway.”