OBAMA'S ISLAM ENVOY ADMITS TO MAKING COMMENTS

Very curious that this one comes out late Friday night but Politico is now reporting that Barack Obama's envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), Rashad Hussain has changed his story and has now admitted to making sympathetic comments about convicted terrorist fundraiser, Sami al-Arian.

Politico reports:

President Barack Obama’s new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday – admitting he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference where he discussed the case.

Hussain’s reversal came after POLITICO obtained a recording of his presentation to a Muslim students’ conference in Chicago, where he can be heard portraying the government’s cases towards professor Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, as “politically motivated persecutions.” Al-Arian later pled guilty to aiding terrorists.

Isn't it interesting that it took an actual recording of Hussain uttering the words to actually get him to come clean? With that now out of the way, when will Hussain be fired? If he's not, will the media hold the Obama administration accountable? Politico also reported that the White House refused to comment on Obama's confidence in Hussain now that he's proven to be liar.

The White House declined to say Friday whether the statements or the controversy affected Obama’s confidence in Hussain.

That then leaves the matter of the publication that removed Hussain's quotes. That publication is the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs (WRMEA). All along, the person who attributed the quotes to Hussain has maintained that she accurately did so. Now we learn that it was Hussain himself who approached WRMEA about the comments being taken out of context. Note the tactic here:

It was Hussain himself, he said Friday, who contacted the publication to complain about the story.

“When I saw the article that attributed comments to me without context, leaving a misimpression, I contacted the publication to raise concerns about it. Eventually, of their own accord, they modified the article,” Hussain said of the article in the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs.

Out of context? Please. Doesn't that make you wonder how the editor of WRMEA must feel? Earlier this week, before this stunning admission by Hussain, the Fox News Website reported:

The Web version of the 2004 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs was later edited to delete all of Hussain's comments. Editor Delinda Hanley told Fox News she believes the change was made in February 2009, though she does not recall who requested the edit.

Hanley remembered telling the group's webmaster: "Let's just take out the quotes since they have been attributed to the wrong speaker."

So now we learn that thanks to a recording of the event, Hussain was busted and had to admit to being the one that went to WRMEA. However, what WRMEA said was that they took out the quotes because they were incorrectly attributed to Hussain and were actually said by Sami al-Arian's daughter, Laila. Again from Fox's website:

Hanley suggested to another media outlet that the comments attributed to Hussain were actually made by Sami al-Arian's daughter, Laila, who also attended the event. But the author of the piece, Shereen Kandil, told Fox News that she would never confuse the two people.

"If I quoted someone, it's because they said it," she said, adding that she no longer works for the magazine and was surprised to learn of the changes.

The White House also attributes the quotes to Laila al-Arian.

Who lied? It would appear that WRMEA is being thrown under the bus in true Obama fashion. If Hussain is now telling the truth - yeah, right - then that means Hanley should be fired. If Hussain is lying, then Hanley should call him on it. What about Kandil? Now that she is vindicated after being accused of one of the greatest sins in journalism, will she come out publicly and demand an apology?

What is getting lost in all of this is where Rashad Hussain said those things, taken out of context or not. He was at an event sponsored by the Muslim Students Association or MSA. Discover the Networks has plenty of dirt on the MSA. It has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, and quite a few other unsavory groups and characters.

Click Here for more on the MSA.

This story is eerily reminiscent of another "recording" that was made involving Barack Obama at a dinner with Rashid Khalidi. Anyone remember that one? The Los Angeles Times had in its possession, a tape that was allegedly incredibly damaging to then candidate Barack Obama but they refused to release it.

Gee, I wonder what would have happened if they had.

This is huge beyond words.

Click here for my earlier post on this.

h/t to GMBRD