Oliver Willis caught this the other day: rightwing whackjob Debbie Schlussel is once again inserting extra hatred in to the Presidential campaign, by attacking Barack Obama for meeting with Shiite religious leader Imam Hussien Al-Qazwini, the leader of the largest mosque in America.  

Obama met with Qazwini before his town hall last week in Warren, Michigan.  They chatted for a few minutes, and Qazwini gave Obama a copy of his new book.  Predictably, the wingers have gone crazy.  

It makes sense that Obama would meet with the Imam.  Qazwini came to the United States in 1992.  He was first in California, but eventually ended up in Dearborn Michigan, home of the largest population of Middle Eastern Arabs outside the Middle East.  The Arab-American population in Detroit—between a quarter and a half million—is diverse, but the largest group is Lebanese Shiite Muslims.  Beginning in the 1990's, the Shiite Lebanese were joined by Iraqi Shiites.  

Like these new immigrants, Qazwini is from Iraq.  His Grandfather was an Ayatollah in Karbala who Saddam arrested, and he died in prison.  The family fled Iraq, Hussein Al-Qazwini came to the US, and unlike most of the Arab-American community, was a strong advocate for overthrowing Saddam.  Eventually, however, even many of the Arab-Americans who supported the invasion of Iraq—always a small group--became disillusioned with the US occupation of Iraq and turned on Bush and the GOP.  

Which brings us to the fun part about the wingers going crazy over Obama's meeting with Qazwini.  How many of the wingers were going crazy in 2003 when Qazwini gave an opening prayer before Congress?  Who complained that Qazwini met with staffers of the Bush administration's National Security Council to talk about the overthrow of Saddam?  Where were the complaints about the four or five invitations to visit Bush at the White House extended to Qazwini?  Did the wingers flip out when Qazwini participated in the roll-out of Bush's Faith Based Initiative, an event that took place at the White House?

And what about those events Bush attended in Dearborn, the ones with these great photos found by Oliver:

Most of the wingers are just hypocrites, or incapable of using Google as a way to avoid embarrassing themselves.  They're just pushing this garbage because they're authoritarian Republicans.  If it was McCain meeting with Qazwini, they probably wouldn't utter a peep.  

But Schlussel is another story.  That woman truly is obsessed with all things Muslim.  She's not only obsessed with the Obama was once a Muslim, so he's always a Muslim insanity, she doesn't want any politician to have anything to do with any Muslim or Arab leader (and for her "Arab" and "Muslim" are often used as synonyms).  She's already succeeded in getting the McCain campaign to buckle under from her pressure to distance themselves from an Arab-American in Michigan who's raised money for Bush and plenty of other politicians, both Democratic and Republican.  

The McCain campaign has shown that they will disrespect Arabs and Muslims rather than say no to haters like Schlussel, the bigots in the wingnuttosphere, and the nativists who make up a sizable chunk of the GOP base.  So the question is, will McCain do as almost every other major politician does, and meet with Imam Qazwini?  Or will he show that it's the same old Republican party, the one that will offer lip service about tolerance but which in the end refuses to denounce bigotry and hatred?  

From Jake Tapper:

The campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., removed a man from his Michigan Finance Committee today.

It started after conservative writer Debbie Schussel called Michigan businessman Ali Jawad not only a supporter of Hezbollah -- a group the US State Department labels a "terrorist organization" -- but also claimed he was a "key agent of the terrorist group in the Detroit area."

After Schussel started asking questions the McCain campaign removed him from the finance committee for a May fundraiser.

"Apparently he is a well known member of the Arab-American community in Dearborn," a McCain staffer tells ABC News. "He is also a known Republican donor and former Bush finance committee member. When these rumors surfaced he notified the campaign and we removed him from the finance committee. The guy never raised a dime for us and he isn’t even a contributor."

Tapper directed people to Schussel's site—if you want to look for yourself you can get there via the link to Tapper—and then wondered if this wasn't some preemptive move by McCain to deny Obama a shot at McCain for being weak on terrorism.

It's both more complicated and simpler.  The Arab community, its place in Michigan, and its ties to the Middle East are complicated.  However, what's simple is that Debbie Schussel hates Arabs.  The McCain campaign is afraid to offend the far right.  So they ditched Ali Jawad rather than deal with Debbie Schussel.

A disclosure.  I haven't seen him in about 5 years or so, but I once knew Ali Jawad.  That may sound extraordinary, but it's nothing special for someone who's run campaigns in Michigan, especially for one who's worked with the Detroit Area's huge Arab community.  I've brought candidates to meet with him and his political circle, and I've worked with him to elect Democrats, just as my Republican counterparts have worked with him to elect Republicans.

To fully understand what's happening here, one must understand the Detroit area and its Arab community.  There are several million Arabs across the country, most of whom are Christian, with many tracing their families back to Christian Lebanese and Syrians who immigrated to the US in the early 20th Century.  What's different about the Arab population in the Detroit area is the size, diversity and power of the Arab community.  

Lebanese Shiites have lived in the Detroit area since the early 20th century.  In the shadows of the Ford Rouge Complex—one of the biggest factories in the world, which once employed 80,000 men—is the "South End" of Dearborn.  This neighborhood was a mix of Shiite Lebanese, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, Maltese, Greeks and Armenians.  In the 1970's, as the other ethnic groups moved away from the neighborhood, the Lebanese Civil War exploded.  Soon the neighborhoods of southern and eastern Dearborn—which borders Detroit—became home to many thousands of Arabs.  These immigrants were mostly Shiite Lebanese, but eventually Dearborn also became home to large numbers of immigrants from Yemen.  Around the same time many Chaldeans—Roman Catholics from Iraq whose traditional language is Aramaic, the language that dominated the region at the time of Jesus—moved in large numbers to other neighborhoods in the Detroit area.  

Today, the Arab population of the Detroit area is somewhere between a quarter and a half million.  The largest groups are the Lebanese Shiites and the Chaldeans, although there are also large numbers of Yemeni, Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and, since the end of the first Gulf War, Iraqi Shiite Arabs.  Many Detroit area Arabs are Christian, but immigrants in the last 20 years are more likely to be Muslim.

Like almost every immigrant group, Arabs have moved beyond their original neighborhoods and can be found throughout the area.  And everyone in Detroit has a lot of contact with Arab-Americans.  In secular Baathist Iraq, Chaldeans were a semi-protected group that were permitted to sell liquor.  When they began moving to Detroit, they took up the same business.  Today, Chaldeans own almost all the convenience and liquor stores in the area; everyone in the Detroit area interacts with Chaldeans because almost all the corner stores are family run.  And when you stop for gas, you'll be dealing with a Lebanese Shiite, because they own and/or operate almost all the gas stations in the area.  

Arab-Americans lean Democratic but are a key bloc of ticket-splitters.  Because of their rapidly increasing wealth, they have also become an important source of campaign contributions, especially in the $250 to $1,000 range.    This is where Ali Jawad comes in.  He is the head guy in the gas stations owners association.  He also runs the Lebanese Heritage Club, which hosts just about every candidate forum for Arab-Americans, and which regularly attracts every major politician in the area.  He's a major collector of checks, and he's one of the leaders of his community.  

As Tapper points out, Jawad has said things about Hezbollah that make it sound less sinister than one would think a group would be to make the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.  Well, he's not the only person in the area to not condemn Hezbollah; the range of attitudes of Lebanese in Dearborn is probably centered somewhere between ambivalent to fairly supportive.  Many of the Dearborn Lebanese come from a handful of villages in Southern Lebanon, within a few miles of the Israeli border.  Thus, they come from the heartland of Hezbollah.  Their home villages were used by the PLO to stage raids in Israel during the early 1970's—there is often animosity between Lebanese Shiites and Palestinians, for many Lebanese blame Palestinians for destabilizing Lebanon—the area was occupied by Israel for many years, and it was only after years of fierce attacks by Hezbollah that Israel abandoned Southern Lebanon.  In the eyes of many Lebanese, Hezbollah liberated their home villages from Israeli occuption.  

Hezbollah is now the de facto government of Southern Lebanon, and provides social services as well fights Israel.  Many people in Dearborn have family ties to major players in Lebanese Shiite politics.  And Lebanese in Dearborn view Hezbollah with much the same mix of distrust mixed with nationalist pride and identity that Catholic residents or former residents of IRA-controlled neighborhoods in Belfast or Derry view the IRA.  Most Lebanese in Dearborn came here to escape war, but that doesn't mean they don't identify with one faction more than the others.  In Dearborn, many identify  with Hezbollah.  

But whatever their views about their home country, most Arabs in Southeast Michigan view themselves as Arab-Americans, and that's how they're viewed by most of their non-Arab neighbors.  In the Middle East, most would be viewed hostilely by the Sunni terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, because most Arabs around Detroit are Shiite or Christian.  They moved to the US to escape problems back home, and have settled in.  They often hate the foreign policy of their adopted country, but they love being Americans.  And in Michigan, they are political players.

Back in the 1980's, Democratic governor Jim Blanchard was accused of returning contributions from Arab-Americans.  When he ran for Governor in 1990, Republican John Engler—with the help of his Republican party chair Spencer Abraham—did the opposite, and enthusiastically reached out to Arab-Americans.  For each of his three elections he was rewarded for his outreach with votes and contributions from Arab-Americans.  Abraham himself even slid in to the Senate in the 1994 Republican landslide (before losing to Debbie Stabenow in 2000).  But many Arab-American voters still strongly supported Democrats, especially members of Congress David Bonior (then the second-ranking Democrat in Congress), John Dingell (who represented all of Dearborn for several decades) and John Conyers (who now splits Dearborn with Dingell).  Jawad's personal political contributions mirror these community-wide patterns.

I don't know enough about Ali Jawad's background or business practices to vouch for him, but I doubt the McCain campaign does either.  But I do know that just about everyone in Michigan politics, Republican and Democrat, has sought his support, and John McCain's campaign just dumped him because viciously anti-Arab reactionary Debbie Schlussel called him a terrorist (which for her is practically a synonym for "Arab").  

Once again we have a case where a politician has no problem with dumping on Arab-Americans because of ethnic stereotyping.  It's like accusing Italians in the 1940's of all being tied to the Mafia, or thinking that every Salvadoran that comes in to the US today is connected to a violent drug gang.  

Tapper wondered if the Obama campaign might eventually throw the Jawad association back in McCain's face.  I would hope not, because that would just be validating the claims of one of the most hateful people on right.  She's claimed Media Matters is Nazi-funded.  She claimed the shooter at Virginia Tech was a "Paki."  And she's used the same scare tactics against Obama himself, pushing the bullshit that he was once a Muslim, and that "once a Muslim, always a Muslim,"  and that his comments are heavily lifted from the film Malcolm X.  In short, this woman hates Arabs and hates Muslims.  Hell, she just hates.  And anyone or anything she hates she depicts as part of a scary conspiracy of all Arabs and all Muslims (with the occasional Nazi thrown in to give her predictable hatred a bit of retro zing).  

There are legitimate criticisms to make against McCain and the Republican party in general about being soft on terrorism.  However, in the absence of anything other than the hate-filled rantings of that lunatic Debbie Schlussel, attacking McCain for once having Ali Jawad on his finance committee would not be a legitimate criticism.  The legitimate criticism of McCain is for being soft on hatred and bigotry, and caving to Debbie Schlussel.  It would be wrong for Obama's camapign to dignify her hate.  Furthermore, it would be dumb politics, because it would needlessly alienate tens of thousands of good Americans who also happen to be of Lebanese descent and swing voters in what could be one of the most competitive states in the November election.  

Currently, the race to the bottom amongst the few remaining pro-Clinton blogs is between Larry Johnson's NO QUARTER (now receiving an influx of traffic from places like Free Republic) and, in a bit of an upset, Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left, who used to be a principled, progressive blogger.

The rightwing Neocon smear below the fold.

Darrell Issa's (R-CA) stunning statement reducing the 9/11 attack on the United States to a "simple" plane crash is just the latest outrage from the execrable California Republican.  After all, the one-time accused car thief turned car alarm magnate attacked the families of dead Blackwater contractors, accused Valerie Plame of perjury and played a vital role in purging a U.S. attorney, just to name a few others.  Yet less than five years after he cried like a baby while announcing his withdrawal from the California governor's race, Darrell Issa mysteriously remains a force in American politics.

Here, then, are the Top 10 Moments from Darrell Issa's Hall of Shame:

In much the same way that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, conservative culture warriors love to hate the Oscars.  Last night's 80th Academy Awards were no exception.  Nothing seems to infuriate the family values crowd more than Hollywood award winners on stage thanking their same-sex partners for their support.  Nothing, that is, except the sight of American soldiers in Iraq introducing them.

Today is truly a watershed day in the primary campaign.

For before today, as I will demonstrate, the list of 9/11 fearmongers, flinches and dog-whistlers who chose to refer to Barack Obama by "Barack Hussein Obama" was a short and distinguished one.

Bob Kerrey and those who have defended him strenuously here must be very proud to count themselves among the following Republican scumfucks great Americans:

Still think there's not a conspiracy among conservatives to intentionally say the most stupid, offensive thing possible without getting Imus'ed?

Well, "radio talk show host" Debbie Schlussel tops Coulter, and it's gotta be a secret contest, because there is no f--king way anyone is this damn stupid but still manages to chew their food. According to Schlussel, if you're Jewish and offended by Ann Coulter's statements, you're a phony Jew:

True religious Jews are not offended by Ann [Coulter]'s comments, though they really appreciate her alliance with our causes. It's only the Jewish libs, like Deutch [sic], who are feigning this shock and outrage. That's because she's a threat to their real religion: liberalism.

Of course, Schlussel makes a big point of saying that she is a true "religious Jew", and other Jews are the phony ones, so it's not a bigoted statement -- of course not.

The reason I keep bringing these things up, this week, is to show this as standard operating procedure throughout the right. It shouldn't be ignored, it should be highlighted. This is the entire nut of their movement: deciding which soldiers are patriotic, and which ones are phony. Deciding which families living in the aftereffects of tragedy are needy, and which are phony. Deciding which Jews are true, and which are phony. "Phony" is the mantra: anyone who disagrees with them is either (1) mentally ill, (2) under the spell of evil liberals, or (3) frauds. They seem to revel in thier own incapacity to comprehend dissent.

But I have no explanation for this current round of unusually spectacular conservative crap, other than perhaps the melting icecaps have released all the excess Stupid that was trapped in ancient ice as the dinosaurs died off.

Bill Kristol - Not Cheerleader for Bush?

[Click here for larger image]

Thinkprogress called my attention to this:

Kristol: ‘I’m not an uncritical cheerleader.’

In a new Time magazine piece, Bill Kristol writes that he is "impressed" by the progress being made in Iraq. Like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) before him, Kristol cites a visit to a Baghdad market as evidence of progress

Let us begin with master satirist, Stephen Colbert, and his recent contretemps with John Mellencamp.  For those who missed the bout, the play by play is available for your enjoyment.  The KO is shown here.  Suffice to say, Mellencamp nailed Colbert better than any guest since Cokie Roberts got a clean shot off early in his career.  

Shortly after I posted this devastating attack, Viacom yanked the file! Smell the fear!?!?!?!

But this isn't about Colbert.   He's just a funhouse mirror mocking the warped virtues of the Chickenhawk Nation.  No, this is about hunting real-world chickenhawks who need to be publicly challenged to put up or shut up.  Mellencamp's nailing Colbert is noteworthy because he shows how to effectively strike at the very foundation of the neocon chickenhawk propaganda machine.  Viacom's rapid response shows this tactic terrifies them.

I am posting images that can be used by anyone to illustrate blog entries about the people depicted. This is an ongoing project.

I will be glad to consider any requests.

The following are smaller versions of images previously posted.

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There more below the fold

I am posting images that can be used by anyone to illustrate blog entries about the people depicted. This is an ongoing project.

If you have any requests I will be glad to consider them.

Also I will provide smaller images if you need them. Just tell me what height and I will adjust the width accordingly.

Images requested by Kos users: litigatormom and fly

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Debbie Schlussel

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Chris Matthews

Tweety with his little buddy

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More below the fold

Debbie Schlussel, who describes herself as a "Conservative political commentator, radio talk show host, columnist, and attorney," got caught out by Media Matters posting remarks about the Virginia Tech killer in which she speculated that the shooter could be a "Paki" and an Islamic terrorist.  (Daisy Cutter also caught Schlussel out here on The Daily Kos).

It was a dumb thing to write, and Schlussel did recognize that and took down the post.  However, rather than taking responsibility for her own words, she replaced it with this:

I've removed this entry, mostly because I am spending too much time monitoring the slimy comments from the Nazi-infested Media Matters for America cretins.

Times like these can be depressing, thank God for people like Debbie 'the ragheads did it' Schlussel to provide us with comic relief:

Here's what we know about the murderer of at least 32 students and maimer of at least 28 more at Virginia Tech, today:

• The murderer has been identified by law enforcement and media reports as "a young Asian male."
• The Virginia Tech campus has a very large Muslim community, many of which are from Pakistan (per terrorism investigator Bill Warner).
• Pakis are considered "Asian."
• There were 2 attacks at least half a mile apart.
• There have been at least two bomb threats to this campus in the last two weeks.

More below.

As a member of Students for Barack Obama, I have a Google News Alert that I get each day with what the MSM and blogosphere is saying about him. This morning, I saw Liberal Juan Williams Agrees With Schlussel on Obama Muslim Background. It sounded intriguing, so I decided to check it out and see what the newest development in the Obama madrassa smear was.

The blog post had a short quote from Fox commentator Juan Williams: "He comes from a father who was a Muslim. I mean, I think that given we're at war with Muslim extremists, that presents a problem."

I'm sure those of you who are familiar with this guy can tell me that he's not really liberal, even if he is employed by what some people like to call the National Proletariat Radio. But I'm not interested in that, because most of the article was about an article by Bill Sammon in the Washington Examiner, with Debbie's own lucid additions (with the "DS"):

By now, everybody who lurks Daily Kos is familiar with the unsubstantiated charge --- and it's no more than that --- that Sen. Hillary Clinton is quietly attempting to undermine her rival Sen. Barack Obama by spreading innuendos about his Muslim background. AFAIK, nobody here believes the original story at InsiteMag.org has any substance at all. We believe it's a smear directed at both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama. I accept that too.

However, by diligent googling I have tracked this rumor back to a press conference by a certain Andy Martin held on August 10, 2004, while Barack Obama was still running for the Senate against Alan Keyes.

More after the flip.

Crossposted at Jon Swift

Many people are tired of the media's focus in recent Presidential elections on petty personal attacks. They want to hear substantive personal attacks on the candidates. They don't want to hear irrelevant trivialities about the men and women running for President; they want to hear about trivialities that affect their lives. That is why the coverage of Barack Obama, who just announced that he is forming a Presidential exploratory committee, thus far has been so inspiring.

See the drawing on the left. It is a drawing of Debbie Schlussel. It was drawn by me. If you want to use this picture, you must first get my permission. I am copyrighting it: (c) 2007 Mash!

I know what you are thinking - you are thinking that I should quit my day job and become a famous artist. Yes, I have thought of it many times...

My favorite wingnut, she to whom I am strangely attracted, the one and only Debbie Schlussel has threatened to sue Taylor Marsh for using one of her pictures.

So BBC Radio has a program called "World Have Your Say," which covers issues of interest around the globe and frequently features bloggers to give their opinions.  They emailed me about a year ago to be on the show, then bumped my segment "because of rioting in Addis Ababa."  I can't compete with that.

Well, they called me again today, and the topic was Rep. Virgil Goode's comments.  So I made myself available between 10:30 and 11 to make my international radio debut.  As is typical for these kind of talking head segments, they pair up the conservatives and liberals.  And yes, I was paired with Debbie Schlussel, the same person who wrote the paranoid, lunatic rating about Barack Obama this week entitled "Once a Muslim, Always a Muslim."  So I was the balance for the insane.  Making me sane.  Confirmed.  So shut up, voices in my head!

Details on the showdown on the flip...