As part of a nauseating and ultimately misleading discussion hailing Pamela Geller’s anti-Muslim provocations as heroic, famed attorney Alan Dershowitz likened Geller’s tactics to Martin Luther King.
As I’ve previously noted, a slew of Fox News pundits have condemned Geller this week. But not Megyn Kelly or Sean Hannity.
Last night, “straight news anchor” Kelly offered up an editorial in which she painted Geller as some kind of great patriot – while ignoring the kind of extremist hate mongering that is Geller's usual behavior.
KELLY: First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh explained how not only did the folks organizing a “draw Muhammad” event down in Texas have the legal right to do it, which some had questioned, but how what they did was actually important and of real value because it was an act of defiance, defiance toward those radical Muslim factions who mean to impose their moral code on us.
…What happened in Texas is a group said no, you don’t control speech in this country. ...The bottom line here is that some in this country have been so busy trying to figure out how to avoid causing any religion any offense, they have forgotten what is offensive to Americans, namely those who would trample on our core ideals. In America, we stand for liberty and freedom to offend, to provoke, to persuade and to defy.
And yet despite this ringing endorsement, not once did Kelly show a single one of those all-American, Muslim-provoking cartoons.
Instead, Kelly hosted two like-minded guests, law professor Alan Dershowitz and conservative Rich Lowry.
Dershowitz began by giving Kelly a round of applause for her “fantastic” statement. He called it the “paradigm of the way Americans have to look at our freedoms and our First Amendment. Jefferson would have been proud of you.”
But I didn’t see him holding up any of the cartoons, either.
The objections to Geller are not that she didn’t have the right to stage her "draw the prophet" event. She certainly did. But holding her up as a poster child for freedom – as opposed to a reckless self-promoter - is the issue.
But Dershowitz took it a step further by likening Geller to Martin Luther King.
DERSHOWITZ: Everything that the critics of what Geller has said could be said about Martin Luther King. Now, I don’t want to make any comparisons between the two of them morally or legally. But from a Constitutional law point of view, there’s no difference. Martin Luther King picked some of the cities he went to precisely in order to provoke and bring out the racists and show what kind of violent people they are so the world could see what was wrong with Jim Crow. It’s part of the American tradition to provoke so that the world can see.
This is such a ridiculous comparison, I hardly know where to begin. King chose the cities he went to in order to provoke the racists who lived and governed there. He was advocating for change in America. Geller, on the other hand, performed her stunt in Texas, where she knew she deliberately endangered innocent people - and in fact, an innocent person got shot – for the sake of provoking Muslims, only. If Geller were really like King, she would take her act to Pakistan.
But wait, there’s more.
DERSHOWITZ: I think one has to remember the most important part of this is there’s only one group in the world today that threatens to kill people who offend them. And that is radical Muslims. …Jews and Christians don’t go after and threaten to kill Farrakhan when he makes his outrageously anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements. They don’t do it to other groups.
Oh, really? Tell that to the family of Dr. George Tiller, assassinated by a born-again Christian in the name of morality. For that matter, I can show Dershowitz the serious death threats I’ve received from non-Muslims who don't like my views. And I’m far from unique in that regard. As a matter of fact, I got this email last night, with the subject heading “Juan Williams,” apparently referring to his fiery debate with Geller last night:
What a disgusting excuse for an American.
Free speech trumps all, and if you disagree with this, you are either
Anti-American, pro-jihad, pro-sharia, or all three.
Please come to Texas, and we’ll show you what free speech is all about;
Oh, and by the way, we’ll demonstrate what the second amendment is all
About too.
Please send as many jihad card-carrying members as you wish to lose.
Something tells me that was not written by a Muslim.
And while we’re at it? Martin Luther King was assassinated, too. Not by a Muslim.
Watch it above, from last night’s The Kelly File.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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