My pals over at OC Blog highlighted today an upcoming television program written by conservative Republicans who've gotten PBS to air a program called “Islam vs. Islamists,” according to a press release. The show is happily billed as “the film PBS doesn't want you to see,” a less than subtle slap at the so-called liberal media.
According to the May 24 edition of the Washington Times, “the often-disquieting 52-minute film explores the struggles of moderate American Muslims at the hands of their radical brethren and gives details about a “parallel” Islamist society that is slowly but surely developing within the U.S. borders. The film was produced by conservative columnist Frank Gaffney Jr., founder of the Center for Security Policy, filmmaker Martyn Burke and Middle East scholar Alex Alexiev.”
It's ironic and surely frustrating for Congressman Dana Rohrabacher that a Republican website would tout Gaffney and his program. Until now, OC Weekly is the only local news organization that informed the public about Rohrabacher's close, lengthy relationships with individuals tied to anti-American terrorism. One of our sources? Gaffney.
Here is just one tidbit of the alarming information that Gaffney discovered:
The Center for Security Policy obtained an affidavit from a former staffer for U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) in December 2001. It described a conversation she had had with Khaled Saffuri in the Congressman's offices in which he acknowledged “sponsor[ing] the child of a suicide bomber.” Redacted excerpts of the affidavit appeared in Insight Magazine. Shortly thereafter, Rep. Rohrabacher appeared at the Wednesday Group meeting to provide a personal endorsement for Saffuri.
That I relied on a credible, conservative Republican like Gaffney to help expose Rohrabacher's hypocrisy greatly disturbed local Republicans. If he's not hailed as a hero in the Bush War on Terror, the congressman–who skipped combat duty during the Vietnam War–gets upset.
I know this firsthand. Last year, he chased me down a street–wet hair, carrying a towel, no shoes and enough anger to fill the Rose Bowl. How dare I question his relationships with certain Arabs the FBI considered terrorist associates, he said. The Jews were out to get him and I'd played into their hands, he continued. Yelling loud enough to drive neighbors from their houses, he pointed his finger in my face and declared that he'd personally risked his life for this country!
Then he asked: Where was my appreciation for this fearless warrior?
Ha.
Let's see if the local mainstream media finally acknowledges the truth about this rogue statesman.
My bet: no way.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.