Sunday, May 02, 2010

Cracks in the Gentlemen's Club: The Bostom Incident






Introduction:


The whole point of the "Gentlemen's Club" of the anti-Islam movement, as I have articulated that concept before on this blog, is to cover up significant disputes and/or ruptures that might occur between prominent members (if not, indeed, movers) of the still inchoate anti-Islam movement. Why cover them up? It's not clear, since the question of why seems also to be part of the secretive goings-on of the Gentlemenly Aristocracy of the anti-Islam movement. The best conjecture would be that they are afraid that airing out of disputes would "weaken" the movement, and would thus play into the hands of the Muslims and their enablers.


The one major exception to this was the grotesquely gargantuan public implosion of Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, some time last year. It was an exception because the dispute (which became a rupture) between Johnson and Robert Spencer (among others) was not secreted away behind the closed doors of the Gentlemen's Club, out of sight of the common rabble of ordinary civilian Jihad Watch readers, but was aired in the full sunshine of the public, with Spencer, for example, publishing several Jihad Watch missives devoted exclusively to Johnson and responding to Johnson's name-calling with more of the same.


Another exception has been the treatment of Lawrence Auster by Robert Spencer, who in effect declared Auster a de facto persona non grata for the anti-Islam movement. This wasn't so much a rupture or expulsion from the Club, as it was a clarification that Auster is not wanted.

Other than that, heretofore it has been difficult to tell whether certain professional friends of Spencer in the anti-Islam movement have over the recent past fallen out of his favor or not. When his former favor included regular and frequent high praise (as in the case of Diana West), the later change in behavior on Spencer's part -- ignoring them to the point of seemingly snubbing them -- then leads to a reasonable, albeit tentative, conclusion that some falling out between them had occurred. But we ordinary civilians in the anti-Islam movement could only conjecture about this, since the key players seemed to continue to abide by the Code of the Gentlemen's Club -- perhaps modelled after Midwestern Methodist or Lutheran aunts who always reminded their nieces and nephews that "If you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all" -- whereby any explanation for a recent change in ostensible signs of a former friendship, from former warmth and admiration to a sudden and sustained coldness, was wanting.

Other than Bostom, Spencer has grown cold with regard to three others who in former times were routinely praised -- Diana West, Bruce Bawer, and Baron Bodissey of the
Gates of Vienna blog. Concerning Bruce Bawer, I wrote at length about his egregious faux pas, back in May of 2009, of effectively coming out (pun intended) in support of Charles Johnson's grotesque witch-hunt of "fascists" in the anti-Islam movement. That above-linked essay of mine also contains some analysis of the strange contortions which the Code of Silence tends to produce.

As for Baron Bodissey, I had an interesting exchange back in February in the
comments section to my blog entry that explored why Spencer seemed to have been remiss in mentioning such an important figure as the American politician Allen West who is clearly the most knowledgeable American politician -- if not of the world -- about the dangers of Islam. Since it was Andrew Bostom (followed quickly by Diana West) who seemed to have first called attention to Allen West, I conjectured at the time that perhaps Spencer was ignoring Allen West because otherwise he would have had to give hat tips to two people (Bostom and Diana West) with whom for some reason he no longer seemed to want to be associated. In the comments section, a reader named "Anonymous" confirmed for me that Jihad Watch formerly had the Gates of Vienna blog on its blogroll, but no longer (and as of today, it remains absent there). That reader also asked Baron Bodissey, who owns that blog, whether this reflected any falling out he had had with Spencer. This was Bodissey's reply:

My policy is not to fight with anyone who is at least mostly on the same team as me. Charles Johnson forced a fight upon me -- and besides, it became obvious that he was no longer on the team, if he ever was. In all other cases I have managed to duck open confrontations, which is my preference.
As a result of my policy, I will air no dirty laundry here. You will have to ask Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch the rationale for their actions. Pamela and Robert have their reasons that the reason knows not.

As I put it at the time to "Anonymous":

[Bodissey's] responses to you exemplify in spades the "Gentlemen's Agreement": he couldn't have put the crux of the Agreement any more directly and clearly.


And I added:


His attitude, and the anxiety one detects just beneath the surface, I continue to find silly -- all based on the notion that having mature disagreements out in the open is somehow going to "weaken us". One major reason why the West is superior to Islam is that (with the usual caveats that nobody is perfect) we have cultivated an ability to have differences and express those differences openly, yet in civil fashion, without succumbing to a breakdown through vituperation and violence. It is supremely ironic that Baron Bodissey -- who trumpets his love for the greatness and distinction of the West -- would cower so from boldly practicing this particular feature of the West's greatness.

That same reader of mine also found an interesting comment by Baron Bodissey's blog partner, Dymphna, in which she clearly implies that she and Bodissey consider the rupture in their relations with Spencer and Pam Geller to be the fault of the latter two:

Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch delinked us a long time ago. We didn't notice until readers started asking us about it. We referred them to the source(s) -- i.e., Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, but I've no idea what happened as I don't think any of them ever reported back.
(...) Have you ever had an irreconcilable conflict? One that no matter what you did, you couldn't resolve? These happen in families and at work. If you've ever been ensnared in such an experience you know that sometimes it's not about you at all.

About Diana West, and her apparent fall from Spencerian grace, I have written two or three essays -- all conjecture, since I had no solid evidence of a rift between her and Spencer (and she even denied any such rift in a private email to me last year). Now, this week, we see Robert Spencer exhibiting the wounded reflex of lashing back at Diana West by characterizing her sober analysis of the Bostom situation as a "vicious attack" and as a "smear campaign". Her sin, of course, was to disagree with Spencer. When we compare that petulantly hurt characterization of Diana West with all the praise Spencer heaped on her regularly and frequently in days of yore (as I documented in my essay The Persian Flu) --

"tell-it-like-it-is Diana West"


"Diana West has a superb column..."


"Diana West's superb proposal for recasting the "war on terror"..."

"West for President!"

"From the superb Diana West...

"With her usual acuity and perceptiveness, Diana West explains..."

"The ever-perceptive Diana West..."


"The ever-insightful Diana West..."


"One of the most clear-sighted and brave columnists on the scene today..."


-- and add to that the long-standing ignoring of Diana West by Spencer (as he had of late come to ignore Bostom, as well as Baron Bodissey and Bawer), it becomes clear that I was right all along: another falling out.
But the explanation for this falling out remains in the darkness behind the locked doors and velvet ropes of the Gentlemen's Club. With the exception, of course, of that comment by Spencer about West's "vicious attack" and "smear campaign" against him -- albeit a comment rather tucked away in a comments field to a thread already at that point teetering on the brink of falling into the Chasm of Archives.

I tend to think it's not a coincidence that during the time that Spencer grew unprecedently frosty to West, she wrote many essays taking a stance diametrically opposite his on two important issues: Vlaams Belang, and the Iranian demonstrations. Nor does it seem a coincidence that during approximately the same period of time Spencer found a new friend -- Pam Geller -- whose romanticized idealism of the Iranian "reformers" caused her to swoon regularly and dramatically with hope. If I'm right, this means that Spencer's personal rifts are having a concrete effect on his role as a reporter and analyst for the anti-Islam movement.

The Bostom Incident


A major crack in this system of the
Gentlemen's Code thus occurred recently when suddenly out of the blue Andrew Bostom on his blog accused Robert Spencer of plagiarism and took a pot shot of calling him a name ("Little King"). This was in response to a Jihad Watch essay Spencer published three days prior (April 21) in which he dismantled at length and in detail the canard that Muslims learned antisemitism from the Nazis of the 20th century. As Jihad Watch readers know -- because in the past Spencer has referred them to Bostom and highly praised his efforts in marshaling long-forgotten Western scholarship on the matter -- Bostom has become a kind of pioneer in the subject of Islamic antisemitism, not only publishing many articles on the subject, but also producing a massive compendium, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism. I had noted at the time that Spencer's omission of Bostom was rather curious; and indeed, I had noticed for quite some time, perhaps many months, a dearth of hat tips to Bostom on Jihad Watch, leading me to tentatively conjecture whether some falling out had occurred between them. At some point not too long ago, in the context of publishing various photos of an anti-jihad event, Spencer published one photo that showed himself, Pam Geller and Bostom all together and looking mutually warm. That was the only evidence to date that apparently no falling out had occurred, but at the time I remember thinking that I probably had been wrong in my conjecture. Looks like I was right all along.

Given that Spencer and Bostom had shown ample signs of being good friends for years up to last week, and that each one had highly praised the other many times, the reasonable conclusion to come to was that some falling out over some matter must have preceded Bostom's post, as well as Spencer's April 21 post in which he rudely and unprecedentedly ignored Bostom.
For a fleeting while at the beginning of this latest episode, both Bostom and Spencer seemed to try to maintain a feeble vestige of the Code of the Gentlemen's Agreement -- through the silly mechanism of not overtly mentioning the other's name whilst publicly tilting and counter-tilting at each other: Bostom in his initial sally of April 24 (before his subsequent updates) referring to Spencer simply as "The Little King" and "A Little King Plagiarist", and Spencer in turn referring to his old friend as "A certain writer".

In subsequent days, the Code of the Gentlemen's Agreement has in this regard shown more cracks: Bostom and Spencer publicly referring to each other by name, each one brimming with pique if not hostility. Still, both are stolidly maintaining the core of that Code: neither has uttered a peep about what happened that precipitated all this curious behavior. I noted this in a comment in the Jihad Watch thread linked under Spencer's name above:

Both sides, it appears, are following the Gentlemen's Agreement in this regard -- i.e, in not openly adverting to the other, and certainly not divulging any aspects of the evident rift between them that might elucidate it to the hoi ochloi who loyally follow their words and support them -- even as they (Spencer and Bostom) seem to feel the need to publicize to that same population of followers in oblique fashion their mysterious rift.

And I added:


I don't think that, were the two of them to air the pertinent details of their rift out in the open air and sunshine of free democratic discourse with the public who admires and follows them, it would necessarily hurt the anti-jihad movement either. In fact, I think it would help, if only because such airing out is healthy -- both intellectually and socially. Apparently, their rift preceded Bostom's posting about Spencer's putative "plagiarism", though being one of the
hoi ochloi myself, I am not privy to the goings-on behind the closed doors of the Gentlemen's Club.

Spencer then
responded to me in that thread:

Frank Hesp: Your continued insistence that personal disputes between individuals must be aired out in public is to me inexplicable and unseemly. I have a public presence in regard to the jihad, and that's it. I don't have any obligation to you or to anyone else to make any aspect of my private life public. I have responded to Bostom's substantive charge with a substantive reply. No other details, should any exist, are anyone's business but Bostom's and mine.


(An aside: Spencer has a strange, cheeky, rude and childish tic that manifests itself in addressing certain of his interlocutors with monikers he chooses, rather than the ones they sign off with: thus, my visible name in comments at Jihad Watch is "Hesperado", but he persisted in addressing me as "Frank Hesp", where the "Frank" part dates back to an unpleasant email exchange I had with Spencer a few years ago, in which my fake name for my Yahoo email account was "frank norman". The reader can get a sampling of that email exchange in
this essay published by Lawrence Auster -- in which yet again I call myself some other name, "Erich".)

My
response to Spencer:

As to the privacy of personal disputes, of course generally speaking a person has the full right to maintain it, and I have never claimed otherwise. If, however, that person is a famous quasi-leader of an international sociopolitical movement (however amorphous and inchoate that movement may continue to be); and if any dispute which that famous quasi-leader may have with another person who is also a significant personage in that same international sociopolitical movement (however amorphous and inchoate that movement may continue to be) pertains to, or involves, matters relevant to that international sociopolitical movement, then it becomes of pertinent interest to other members of that international sociopolitical movement, particularly if they look up to that quasi-leader as a quasi-leader. Of course, members of that international sociopolitical movement have no power to compel their quasi-leader to divulge the details even of such a dispute; but they certainly have the right to voice their opinion that the details of such a dispute are in fact of interest to all members of that international sociopolitical movement and of course to the ongoing progress of that international sociopolitical movement itself. If, however, that dispute was completely unrelated to that international sociopolitical movement, then of course, it's nobody's business. I suppose it's possible that Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer fell out over some matter completely unrelated to the anti-jihad movement -- perhaps Andrew got fed up with Robert always trying to cheat on the golf course, or perhaps Robert got fed up with Andrew always trying to find a way to avoid paying for dinner whenever they went to a fancy restaurant -- but somehow that seems unlikely.


Bostom, of course, has not behaved well throughout this episode. The hostility of his initial salvo, with the insulting term "Little King" for Spencer, was immature. Also, his electric use of the term "plagiarism" repeatedly, and without adequately substantiating the charge, has been reckless. While Diana West weighed in with an
intelligent analysis of this angle, she did not demonstrate that Spencer's fault amounted to plagiarism -- only that it was tantamount to a professional discourtesy, which itself can be either minor or grave, or anywhere in between. The discourtesy Spencer showed Bostom by failing to give him his due props in the context of his (Spencer's) recent Islamic antisemtism article could reasonably be said to be serious, when their longstanding friendship and mutual admiration is factored in, along with the prodigious time, labor and personal funding Bostom expended to make possible public access to some of the information upon which Spencer depended in his article. Bostom's reactions to this discourtesy betray a penchant for childish pique. Spencer's counter-reactions only have made the matter worse. The ball is in both courts.

As I wrote in
a comment to that Jihad Watch thread on the Bostom incident:

"While Spencer may be legalistically correct that he didn't "plagiarize" Bostom on the sophistical technicality of the definition of that word, it seems a bit of disingenuousness is afoot for the
spirit of his indebtedness to Bostom, even if not the letter by which he can accurately squeak by on his denial of the charge."

In this respect, I find inadequate Lawrence Auster's
observation that what really got Bostom's goat was not plagiarism per se, but the indignity of being denied a "hat tip" by Spencer at the time the latter penned and published his Islamic antisemitism article. Again, considering all the time, labor and personal expense Bostom invested in getting some of that information available to be used, and considering their longstanding friendship and mutual admiration, the discourtesy Spencer showed Bostom far exceeds the withholding of a mere "hat tip" to a colleague who may have stumbled across something while casually Googling one day and passing it on to Spencer. But, as the discourtesy falls outside of technical definitions that are more precise (like plagiarism), it becomes subject to subjective interpretation. When the formerly warm and mutually admiring relationship of two people breaks down dramatically and apparently suddenly (at least to outside observers), and when we then see both parties continue to use egregiously intemperate language in describing the other and the other's apparent allies in the dispute (e.g., Bostom calling Spencer "Little King", Spencer characterizing Diana West's sober analysis as a "vicious attack"; etc.), it is safe to assume that the blame for the fracture of that relationship falls on both parties. While no one relishes being insulted with hostile epithets, particularly by someone one once counted as a friend, still one must resist the temptation to tilt back emotionally.

For example, consider the elementary revelation that both Bostom and West unearthed about a particular volley
which Spencer fired impulsively back at Boston --

My April 21 article is a chapter from my 2007 book “Religion of Peace?” If Bostom used the quote from “Looming Tower” in a 2009 piece, he got it from me...


The elementary revelation being that, in fact, Spencer's claim was diametrically and flagrantly incorrect: Spencer's own book, as both the West and Bostom articles demonstrate, shows that Spencer got that "Looming Tower" quote from Bostom, not the other way around as Spencer claimed! This seems to indicate that Spencer is being exceedingly sloppy and forgetful. And he had the temerity to append that this supposed fact (about which he was, in fact, dead wrong) shows that Bostom is being "gratuitous and libelous"! One senses here, and in Bostom's hostility against Spencer that seems to come out of the blue, the intemperate and impetuous reflexes characteristic of two grown men letting their emotions about some falling out they have had -- who knows about what -- cloud their judgment and interfere with the elementary care calmer minds would take to adjudicate differences like this.

Conclusion:


If this immature behavior on the parts of both Bostom and Spencer didn't evidently involve matters pertinent to the still inchoate anti-Islam movement about which we all have a sincere and exigent stake -- even we shabby civilians who are not the movers & shakers which Spencer is (and which to a lesser extent Bostom is) -- it would be a matter only of the private business of these two immature men.
What their rift was about, and why two grown men would allow it to affect, perhaps so far in only small ways, the anti-Islam movement of which they are such prominent participants (if not indeed movers), we shabby civilians may never know. But I think we deserve to know, if it pertained to or involved matters relevant to that movement.

One indication of potentially significant consequences for the movement was noted by Lawrence Auster recently:


Quoting Spencer's response on Jihad Watch to a reader --

It would have been private. Bostom chose to make it public. That was his decision: to give fuel to the Islamic supremacists and their enablers. Thus he has become one of the latter.


Auster
writes:

Spencer equates his own person with anti-jihadism. To criticize Spencer is to weaken anti-jihadism, help Islamic supremacists and become their enabler. This is pathological narcissism.


I'm not sure if it's "pathological" (Auster himself has a tendency to use hyperbolically inflammatory language when describing other people's positions and opinions), but it does seem to smack of Spencer's having let his fame and success and the adoration of his followers get to his head a tad. The decision of whom to anathematize from the anti-Islam movement should not be decided by one man who has innumerable adoring fans. It should be a matter discussed in open forum, and adjudicated in as democratic a manner as possible.

And this vilification of Bostom as an "enabler of Islamic supremacists" certainly bespeaks Spencer's contribution to making this rift irrevocable -- just as Bostom's quirky prickliness is also to blame.


The importance and the laudable worth to the anti-Islam movement of both these gentlemen behooves them to swallow their pride and try to patch things up. One way to do this, perhaps, would be to take the rift out of the dark closet in the back of the Salon of the Gentlemen's Club -- where for who knows how long it festered until it finally erupted -- and air it out in the sunshine of public discourse, among all the civilian friends both of them enjoy among the growing family of their supporters and admirers. Let's let these cracks in the Gentlemen's Club be an opportunity to let the sun shine in and air out the musty place!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here is a comment by Pamela Geller, who momentarily forgets to conform with the Gentleman's agreement and writes about Baron Bodissey:

What motivates small petty men is beyond me -- perhaps their inadequacies, but enough is enough.

The "Baron" (ahem) over at Gates of Vienna is spreading a vicious lie about me, when he knows in fact that it is not true.

Snake. He once has the audacity to call me a spy for Charles Johnson (yes, you read that right) in an email thread that included a great many of my colleagues. Why? No clue who he was covering for, but it showed him for what he was. I didn't post on it or discuss it subsequently, because it gives our enemies grist for the mill, and our group is too small as it is. But he has gone public with this latest gossipy lie, and I must address it. Attack me? Fine -- I am used to it. Attack my motives? That's a whole other story, Count Dracula.

Hesperado said...

Thanks Anonymous. Interesting glimpse into... something. There's not much there in Geller's comment other than bristling pique. Have you seen the "vicious lie" by Bodissey which she is referring to? (Boy, she and Spencer and Auster sure love the word "vicious", almost as much as they love the word "attack"...)

Anonymous said...

I believe the so-called "vicious lie" is supposed to be the bolded part of the following paragraph in the post A Rosetta Tombstone:

The videos [i.e. the subtitled versions of the video of Allen West's speech at the launch of the Freedom Defense Initiative] remained online until a few days ago, when someone — presumably the organizers of the event or the videographer — complained to Vimeo that their copyright on the Col. West videos had been violated. Vimeo responded by taking down Vlad’s entire channel — eliminating many other useful and important videos along with those of Col. West.

The organizers of the event in question were apparently Spencer and Geller, and both deny any involvement in the videos being removed.

Spencer also weighed in on the issue, claiming that the Baron's post was "false and libelous".

I have to admit I haven't really paid much attention to the details of the "Recent Unpleasantness", as Baron Bodissey has named it, as what I am primarily interested in is the underlying conflict that it is a symptom of.

Hesperado said...

Anonymous,

I went to the link Pam Geller supplies in her article which you linked me -- it goes to a blog by Pamela Hall whom Geller claims has been working closely with her and Spencer on all these videos. Pamela Hall writes at length about this Vlad Tepes video dispute. I noticed that a claim Pam Geller makes seems to directly contradict what Pamela Hall writes, and I posted it on Hall's blog. I will reproduce it and Hall's response below. I can't for the life of me understand the details of this -- I guess I'm too computer- and Net-unsavvy. (Note: the name "american values" must be Pamela Hall herself.):

Pamela Hall:

You write:

“When Vlad wrote this, he knew that I had nothing to do with it, since Vimeo sends a notice to a person about whom they’ve received complaints, telling him who complained. So Vlad knows who complained, and he knows that it wasn’t me, Pamela Geller, or Robert Spencer. Yet he and Baron Bodissey continue to suggest otherwise.”

However, in Pam Geller’s article on this issue (where at the end she links to your article here), she reproduces the Vimeo notice which specifically cites you (Pamela Hall) as the complainant:

“This is to notify you that, as a result of a third-party notification by Pamela Hall claiming that the material is infringing, we have removed or disabled access to the material that appeared at http://www.vimeo.com/11159463.”

This would seem to contradict your assertion I quoted from you above.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/04/bloggers-lies-and-the-videotape.html

*

americanvalues // May 3, 2010 at 12:56 pm | Reply

A: this is unrelated to Vlad’s VIMEO Wall.
I filed a complaint against one video on Vimeo (not Vlad)

B. I never knew about Vimeo til he accused me (falsely) and apparently this one video that I found at Vimeo ( after he made me aware of the service) must have been his unapproved use of my video, also. Who knew, different name, but why else does Vlad have to notice.

3.That Vimeo notice makes it obvious that Vlad knows who did take down his wall, but it was NOT Pamela Hall

Nobody said...

Erich

I know you've written expensively about the Gentlemen's agreements, b/w different players - Auster, Spencer, GoV, West, Bostom, Geller, Schlussel, et al. Well, since you've been rooting for it, here is something interesting in the catfight dept.

If you've been following Debbie Schlussel lately, who to this day remains a heroine of mine for standing true to principle, regardless of GOP or Dems, you'll notice that she's had public spats w/ Republicans across the board - Michelle Malkin (she calls her Fraudkin), Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Melanie Morgan, Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crawley, Michael Medved, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and a whole bunch of others.

But today, for the first time, I've seen her attack Pamela Geller here - In fact, both Geller & Spencer responded to Schlussel in the comments field of this, and the spat b/w them was worth reading. Schlussel even pointed out that Spencer was not independent in any of this, since he was a co-author w/ Pamela's book The post-American Presidency, and that Spencer had even removed her from his blogroll, probably @ Geller's instigation.

Looks like at least someone is fulfilling your desires.
==
IP

Hesperado said...

Thanks Nobody, I'll check it out and report back with my impression.

For Schlussel to rise to my expectations in this regard, she will have to air out in the open the full pertinent details of the disagreement or dissension in question.

But even if she does, it kind of takes two to tango -- i.e., the other side, Geller/Spencer, must also come clean and air out their side, in a public discussion where both sides are given their due and nothing pertinent is held back in the shadows of the Gentlemen's Club.

P.S.: More and more, it seems like Geller is behind a lot of this stuff.

Hesperado said...

Nobody,

I just realized that thread is from November of 2009! I posted a comment on there anyway, though I doubt anyone will read it. I might put up an article about that thread in the context of pointing out another "crack" in the Club.

So we can see from that thread that Geller and Spencer didn't come clean and furthermore implied that Debbie merely by raising her criticism (which she defended with an argument that Spencer largely ignored) was enabling the wrong side. Shoddy behavior.

Nobody said...

Hesperado

Read your comment there.

A different thing about this particular issue that bothers me, although it's peripheral to your topic here, is that this fallout has happened in the context of helping Muslims. You might recall that I had once wondered whether taking up cudgels on behalf of 'Muslim victims of "Islam"' was the right strategy, or even tactic.

Here you have Geller & Spencer crusading for these victims - on whether they'd be memorialized, and so on, and you have Sclussel pointing out that there are questionable characters in the family of the victims that they are inviting. A few things that ought to be obvious when one is engaging in such activities to support such 'victims':

1. When one takes a public stance to support such victims, they have to include 'sympathetic' relatives of the victims, like Gail Gertrell or Patricia Said, in order to be publicly perceived as credible in their sympathies.

2. In doing that, however, they have to accept anybody who claims that they were supportive and sympathetic to the victims in question. Only ones who can be excluded are those who are known (and shown) to be fraudulent in this regard, like Patricia Said.

3. However, even if the relatives in question are sympathetic to the victims, that says squat about their views on Islam, whether the US should be more Islamic,... It's not just possible, it's highly probably that relatives of people like Amina personally loved her and were genuinely upset that she was killed, but they either don't accept that the deaths have an authentic Islamic basis, or even more, they may think, separately, that it's perfectly okay for the US to become more Islamic so that a day would come when girls like Amina instinctively decide to wear burqhas whenever they go out.

4. As a result, what starts off as a casual anti-Islamization activity ends up 'contaminated' (for want of a better term) not merely by Muslims, but potentially by Muslims who even go so far as to support Islam, even though they may otherwise be opposed to honor killings.

5. All this results in a fracture in the anti-Islamic movement.

Now, this brings up the question of whether such a fissure is healthy for the movement. I wouldn't exactly term it that, but I do think that people who don't seem to know who our enemies are don't belong to the movement. While what you describe in the gentlemen's club is a genuine difference of opinion among people on who to accept in the AIM and who not to, in this case, what we have is a difference of opinion on whether one group is genuinely anti-Islamic, or not.

It's worth noting that while Debbie didn't oppose Pamela's idea of shedding copious tears for 'Muslim victims of Islam' (whenever Debbie covers the topic in her blog, it's in the context of illustrating how they are barbarians - she bluntly calls their country of origin as Barbaria), she did contest her judgment in inviting people who had illegitimate claims in belonging there. Also, Spencer has occasionally appealed for funds, and if suddenly, it's found that he uses that to fly people to such events, as Debbie alleged, then it begs the question of whether JW is indeed as cash-strapped as they occasionally claim. I am somewhat conflicted on the question of Rifqa Bairy - we do need to support Muslims who want to bail out, but at the same time, there are enough taquiyya artists who could perform a charade demonstrating the same.

But what we do need somewhere is someone who has the balls to say that Muslim victims of Islam are not our business, beyond illustrating their barbarism, and that our efforts need to go into confronting Muslim demands head on, whether it's burqhas in DLs, footwash basins in universities or airports, halal butcheries in standard Western franchises like KFCs, and so on.