WHAT ABOUT THAT ISLAMIC ENVOY OBAMA APPOINTED?

Whether it be dereliction of duty on the part of the media, the distraction known as the health care summit, or the fact that the story of Islamic envoy Rashad Hussain being caught in a lie - as well as being complicit in covering it up - was released in a Friday night news dump sometime after 10pm on February 19th. The fact remains that even after the dust settled on the Rashad Hussain story, the White House announced via Robert Gibbs on February 22nd in response to a question posed by Fox News reporter Wendell Goler that it still had full confidence in Hussain.

To her credit, Megyn Kelly at Fox News had been covering the story and even interviewed Frank Gaffney along with a Hussain apologist on February 22nd.



Bill O'Reilly deserves mention for having Kelly on his program to discuss the story as well but this is the type of story that reveals the actions of people within the White House as being so egregious, that it should be followed incessantly until the truth is uncovered. Van Jones would still be a member of the Obama administration if not for Glenn Beck reporting on him daily. The same should be the case with Rashad Hussain but the story appears to have fizzled at this point.

While checking in with the site that initially broke the story, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, I noticed that they have a take on the Hussain story very similar to the reaction I had back on February 17th. Specifically, even if you completely overlook Hussain's quotes at the 2004 MSA event, the fact that he was participating in an MSA event at all is what should be the most troubling. The MSA, or Muslim Student's Association has strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and falls under the latter's umbrella.

Here is what GMBDR posted about Hussain and the troubling fact that what media coverage his appointment did get actually missed the larger point:

Instead, almost the entire U.S. media/blogosphere was focused solely on the issue of Mr. Hussain’s comments about Al-Arian and the missing sentences. This was very similar to what happened after we reported on Mazen Asbahi, the Muslim outreach coordinator appointed in 2008 by then candidate Obama. At that time, the entire focus of media attention was on Mr. Asbahi’s presence on the board of an organization along with an imam at a controversial mosque which had been tied to Hamas fund raising. Just as almost nobody appeared to have read the original post on Mr. Asbahi, nobody now appeared to be reading the original post on Mr. Hussain (in part because FOX, ABC, and other blogs either never referred to our original report or gave us only very sparse credit).

Fox News prides itself on bringing news to the public that the Mainstream Media refuses to cover. To that end, journalism itself requires digging. Again, to Fox's credit (O'Reilly and Kelly), they covered the story but they didn't dig deep or drive the story for more than scant on-air minutes. Did you notice at the end of Kelly's report above, she teased a story about Scott Brown's daughter?

Since O'Reilly reported on the Hussain story, he's actually had the "Body Language Lady" on, as well as the "culture warriors" multiple times. For the record, I have absolutely nothing against Tonya Reiman. She seems like a very nice woman who makes very astute observations about what people are communicating visually. However, if O'Reilly took half of the time he dedicates to having someone like Reiman on to breakdown HIS body language in debates with the likes of Barney Frank and instead had her analyze the body language of members of the Muslim Brotherhood, maybe he'd be somewhat surprised by what Tonya tells him. Heck, Tonya might even be surprised.

GMBDR also takes Rashad Hussain's apologists to task:

His (Hussain's) defenders also alluded to the fact that Mr. Hussain’s comments on Al-Arian and two of his speaking appearances occurred when “Rashad was quite young” (actually only six years ago). This defense ignores Mr. Hussain’s speaking appearance at the recent 2009 Summit of the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals (CAMP), occurring after Mr. Hussain had already become a White House attorney.

GMBDR points out that even if one concedes that point, once you look at CAMP's ties - coupled with Hussain's appearance at one of their events while employed by the White House - they appear to be just as unsavory as the MSA:

CAMP has multiple ties to the North American Muslim Brotherhood. At one point, current Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) President Ingrid Mattson was listed by CAMP as an adviser and Zeba Iqbal, the Vice-Chair of CAMP International, is also on the board of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC-NY). At least one of the CAMP chapters, CAMP Toronto, has joined with other USMB organizations such as CAIR, ISNA, and ICNA to issue protests at Israeli actions in Gaza and against the Niqab (full face veil) ban (a CAMP VP wears it) and in support of Omar Khadr, being held in Guantanamo on charges of killing an American solder in Afghanistan.

What is truly astonishing is that one can continue conceding points to both the White House and Hussain on this story and still find some extremely disturbing facts and ties. Yet, those layers of the onion don't appear to be getting peeled.

Be sure to read the entire GMBDR post.