San Francisco Chronicle's CAIR whitewash

Here comes Jonathan Curiel of the San Francisco Chronicle, to chant "shame, shame!" at U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer's office, for rescinding an award to Basim Elkarra, the head of the Sacramento office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Within weeks, a vocal opponent of the council, Joe Kaufman, condemned the honor, saying that the council has "direct ties to Hamas," the Palestinian organization that the United States and Israel consider a terrorist organization. Days later, after reading Kaufman's pleas, Boxer rescinded Elkarra's award, saying that the council had not adequately condemned Hamas or Hezbollah.

Probably more Israelis would "consider" Hamas a terrorist organization, if Hamas hadn't murdered them before they could come to an opinion that was nuanced enough for Left Coast media libs.

Mr. Curiel accepts CAIR's denial at their word. And in a masterpiece of stalinist reality inversion, he renders The Jooos as the tramplers of the Muslims' free speech on American university campuses. Further down, he write:

Working from his Florida home, Kaufman has become a full-time activist against extremist Muslim groups. His "CAIR Watch" Web site features large photos and biographies of council officials, including Elkarra, whom he criticizes for (among other things) once hosting a panel discussion on Palestinians at UC Berkeley that featured a speaker convicted in Israel for working with Hamas.

The council's link to Hamas, Kaufman says, is through Mousa Abu Marzook, a top Hamas official living in Syria who helped found the Islamic Association for Palestine, to which the council's current executive director, Nihad Awad, once belonged. Kaufman also criticizes the council because Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of the council's Texas chapter, was sentenced to six years in jail for funneling money to Marzook and for violating export laws.

This is not enough linkage for Mr. Curiel. If the link led to, say, David Duke rather than pizzeria-bombing Muslims, I doubt he would be so forbearing of the appearance of association. But since Muslims are by definition The Wretched Of The Earth, whose part against their First World targets must always be taken by good liberals, he just can't bring himself to see the truth, even as he types it.

Every grain in a sandstorm can exclaim, "Who, me?"