Strickland-CAIR Followup: Not in Our Name, Guv (Not in Our Old Media Coverage, Either)

BREAKING: Strickland-CAIR Update: Reported Strickland Staffer Response

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From Patrick Poole at FrontPage, on Ted Strickland’s appearance and speech at Sunday’s CAIR banquet in Columbus:

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was merely repaying his political debt to his friends when he spoke over the weekend at the annual banquet for the Ohio chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that helped him get elected back in November by raising significant amounts of campaign cash and mobilizing election workers on his behalf.

….. One example of CAIR-OH’s efforts to “promote justice and mutual understanding” occurred last summer when a CAIR-OH spokesman, Karen Dabdoub, began publicly indicting the entire community of non-Muslims in Xenia, Ohio of rampant Islamophobia by falsely implicating them in a series of fire-bomb attacks against a restaurant owned by Jordanian-born Muslims.

But as I noted in an article just a few weeks after the incident, (”Kafir-phobia: Americans as Violent Anti-Muslim Bigots“), at the time that Dabdoub was inflaming religious and racial tensions, the local media was already reporting that police knew that the owners themselves were behind the “bombings”, having paid a former employee to vandalize the store. The owner and his son were injured when they unintentionally caused an explosion from lighting up a cigarette while standing in a pool of gasoline they intended to use to set their store ablaze later that night. Both died weeks later from their injuries. No apology to the community or correction was ever issued by CAIR-OH for its spokesman’s false indictment.

….. When he was speaking at the CAIR-OH banquet the other night, Gov. Strickland was doing nothing more than rewarding his political allies for their loyalty. That’s politics. But invoking the authority of the people of the Great State of Ohio in support of an organization committed to inciting hatred and inflaming religious and racial tensions, was nothing short of shameful, no less than if he had praised the neo-Nazi organizations in Southern Ohio.

When you sing the praises of CAIR, Gov. Strickland, it is not in our name.

Read the whole thing.

Old Media non-coverage has entered its fourth day.

A Google News search on “Strickland CAIR” (entered without quotes) done at 5:30 Thursday morning showed only my NewsBusters cross-post from Tuesday, the FrontPage item linked above, and Hot Air’s post yesterday with 6 related articles. No Ohio or National Old Media outlet was among those related articles. The same search done directly at the Columbus Dispatch came up with — nothing:

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The same search at the Cleveland Plain Dealer (cleveland.com) showed one forum comment and helpfully asked if I meant to enter “Strickland car.” The Toledo Blade: nothing. Dayton Daily News: Nothing related to the CAIR appearance. A Cincinnati Enquirer search (cincinnati.com) showed only the press-release rehash entry it posted Monday at its Politics Blog.

(added at 9:30 a.m.) With the passage of three full news cycles and plenty of blog coverage this week, it’s safe to say at this point that Ohio’s and the nation’s Old Media don’t consider it newsworthy that the sitting governor of one of the nation’s largest states broke bread with an organization that was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal terrorist-funding case just two weeks ago — an organization whose national chairman was in attendance at said event. Also, note the apparent total absence of leftosphere commentary on the Strickland appearance in that Google Blog search — though I suppose there’s no point in attempting to defend the indefensible.

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Previous Post:
- June 19 — Ted Strickland’s CAIR Appearance, and Ohio’s Snoozing Press

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UPDATE: Fred Thompson (link to audio here via Hot Air) –

….. CAIR’s spending is running about $3 million a year. They’ve opened 25 new chapters in major cities across the country even as their dues shrank to a pittance. The question is; who’s funding CAIR?

CAIR’s not saying. The New York Times earlier this year reported that the backing is from “wealthy Persian Gulf governments” including the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Also see this Hot Air post about a now-not-available WashTimes article on what the paper found on CAIR’s not-for-profit tax return.

UPDATE 2: Joe C. at RAB recounts a history of ignored Ted Strickland stories that shouldn’t have been. I would add this one from just before the election last November — “Ted Strickland Channels, and Perhaps Hearts, Michael Moore,” where Ted tried to revive the long-ago-debunked claim (scroll to “Deceit Number 56″) that African-Americans and the disadvantaged are bearing a higher proportion of the country’s military burden.