Spencer & Geller: What Happens in Vegas...

Spencer & Geller (no, not another magic act like "Penn & Teller") may have rubbed anti-Islamic people (you know, those strange Neanderthals who keep insisting, of course out of bigotry, racism and hatred, that Islam's monstrously anti-liberal belief system should be condemned) the wrong way a few times before -- not the least of which by alienating various erstwhile colleagues over the years -- but what they have done this week seems to take the cake.

The Blogosphere is a relatively vast, diverse and amorphous space of ideas and discussion on all manner of subjects. One fairly small part of that sphere is the "anti-Jihad" movement (why its participants don't call it the anti-Islam movement remains a mystery). Within that small wing of the Blogosphere, Robert Spencer over the years through his website Jihad Watch has become a major player -- not merely by being a blogger, but also by writing books and by jet-setting all over the world attending various debates, seminars, speeches, lectures and public events revolving around the "anti-Jihad" movement. Of course, the "anti-Jihad" movement is not limited to the Internet, but has involved many different events of sociopolitical activism, and the UK and Europe probably has demonstrated more activity in this regard so far than the Americas or Australia.

In the past two or three years, Spencer has become joined at the hip with Geller, who used to be a relatively bit player in the "anti-Jihad" movement, but has, thanks to her association with Spencer, grown in influence. And no doubt Spencer has benefited from his partnership with Geller, as she seems to have a flair for social networking (and possibly actual influential connections).

At any rate, this week Pam Geller published an apodictic denunciation (based entirely on rumor) of the EDL (the English Defense League) as having "Nazi" associations. The EDL is one of only two political groups in the UK that is actually anti-Islam (the other being the leper colony no one, including most in the "anti-Jihad" movement, wants to touch with a ten-foot pole: namely, the BNP).

Meanwhile, most European, English and American activists and groups who are concerned about the danger of Islam have been supporters of the EDL, and this recent and sudden condemnation from Spencer & Geller has come as a dismaying turn (though not entirely surprising, given Spencer's previous abandonment of the Flemish anti-Islam party, Vlaams Belang, for fear of catching their "fascist" cooties).

In light of this, several key figures of the trans-Atlantic "anti-Jihad" movement have signed and published an open letter to Geller (and, by implication -- one hopes -- to Spencer) urging her to reconsider and to apologize for defaming a group that has been courageously and meritoriously fighting on the front lines against the encroachment of Islam in one major outpost of the West -- the UK.

Will Spencer & Geller step up to the plate and do the right thing, and retract their unsubstantiated smear of the EDL, and apologize for that? Or will they try to pull a rabbit out of a hat?

If you're a betting man, the Vegas odds are on the latter.

UPDATE:

If this description by Lawrence Auster -- of how Geller (and by Siamese extension Spencer) is trying to squirm out of the corner she has painted herself in -- is reliable (and often he is quite astutely reliable), it looks like I or any of my readers would have made a killing on the Vegas odds noted above.