UPDATE: Thanks to Jihad Watch, Winds of Jihad (scroll down a bit), and The Investigative Project on Terrorism for picking up this story.

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This is one of those times when I really, really wonder about traditional media reporting.

You see, the Cleveland Plain Dealer spent almost six years, going all the way back to November of 2001, covering the saga of ultimately deported Cleveland Islamic leader Fawaz Damra. I count over 45 stories at the PD’s Damra collection.

Since most of their Damra-related story links are archived behind its subscription wall, I’ll rely on PD reporter David Briggs’s synopsis, in his article yesterday about the fallen imam’s replacement at the Islamic Center of Cleveland, of Damra’s doings:

….. in fall 2001 ….. a 1991 videotape surfaced showing then-Imam Fawaz Damra railing against Jews and raising money for Palestinian militant groups such as Islamic Jihad.

Damra, who had been an interfaith leader in Northeast Ohio, apologized for the remarks, saying he made them at a time when he had no interaction with the Jewish and Christian communities. He vowed to show the community he was a peacemaker, but his interfaith work was severely affected, and some members left the mosque in protest.

When Damra was indicted in January 2004 on charges that he lied about ties to Palestinian extremist groups on his citizenship application, the mosque’s board of trustees voted to put him on paid leave, but his supporters rallied to have him continue leading worship. Damra and many mosque members said he was the victim of “blatant targeting” of Islamic leaders by the government.

In June 2004, Damra was convicted and stripped of his citizenship. He was deported to the Middle East in January this year after more than a year in jail.

Yikes.

Given the history, and the PD’s previous reporting, I am surprised — make that amazed — that Mr. Briggs didn’t follow up on this “look at me” trouble indicator relayed to him by Damra’s just-named successor, Imam Ahmed Alzaree:

Alzaree would not confirm his hiring, at one point saying he would not come to Cleveland because a reporter was inquiring about his background.

Mr. Briggs should have jumped on the clue train when it was in the station.

A regular Google search done last night on “Imam Ahmed Alzaree” (not in quotes) yielded four results, the last of which was this one:

A backup link, in case the original comes down, is here (Oct. 17 Update, HT Patrick Poole: The sermon has been taken down from its original link. Interesting, considering there’s isn’t supposed to be anything wrong with what was there, according to Alzaree’s defenders. A Wayback link is still on the Internet.)

It looked like a sermon, so I figured it would be worth a visit.

Uh, yeah.

The new imam is described by parties quoted in Briggs’s report as “a good leader,” “a good teacher,” “leaning towards scholarship,” and someone “everybody likes.” Here is how the highly-praised Alzaree wrapped up that March 2003 sermon (backup link here) at the Islamic Center of Omaha, the mosque he led for five years until this past July (bold is mine):

Dear brothers and sisters, the talk about the Day of Judgment is long and full of things that will confuse the human mind and put fear in the hearts of the faithful. Every day that comes is much more Worse than the day before it as we get closer to the hour. Among the signs of the approach of Day of Judgment is what the messenger of Allah PBUH said: “The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: hey, O Muslim there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of Jews.” Agreed upon. This is seemed to be very soon and close now. We ask Allah SWT not to test us so hardly if we live till this horrible moment insha’allah.

Please note that none of this necessarily makes Mr. Alzaree a terrorist, or even a terrorist sympathizer. But it definitely puts him in the same place his predecessor Damra was in late 2001 in terms of “railing against Jews,” and the distance from there to terror sympathy and support isn’t all that far.

Patrick Poole at Central Ohioans Against Terrorism, the go-to place for news of otherwise unreported Islamic extremism in Ohio, has more information indicating that associates of Alzaree may have traversed part or all of that distance.

One of them, Wagdi Ghoneim, according to this link, “met with 2 of the 9/11 hijackers.” Poole reports that Ghoneim visited Alzaree’s Omaha mosque in 2004. The link just cited also refers to a now-unavailable news story saying that Ghoneim “agreed ….. to leave the country rather than fight a legal battle with immigration officials,” and not to return for 10 years. This post at Discarded Lies, which links to a now-unavailable Associated Press item once carried at the New York Times, called Ghoneim “an Orange County mosque leader from Egypt who had allegedly given speeches that could be considered to support terrorist organizations.”

There’s a lot more where those nuggets came from, including a Columbus, Ohio connection, at Poole’s Tuesday evening post. Poole also discusses Alzaree’s treatment of the idea of taxing non-Muslims in the sermon just cited.

If worshipers at the Islamic Center of Cleveland are looking for their new imam to do a lot of “interfaith work,” it would appear that they are in for a great deal of disappointment. It seems to be worth asking how high such dialog is on their priority list.

PD reporter Briggs opened his report by saying that Alzaree’s appointment “Clos(es) a tumultuous chapter in the history of the region’s largest mosque,” and later wrote that “mosque officials are looking forward to a fresh start.”

I don’t think so. And excuse me for wondering why a blogger 250 miles away had to be the first person to surface this.

Cross-posted at Wide Open and NewsBusters.org.

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Addendum: The original texts of the AP and LA Times reports relating to Ghoneim were obtained from a library database, and are available at BizzyBlog’s host here and here, for fair use and discussion purposes.

To fully understand why Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York was so wrong, and so dangerous, you must read Patrick Poole’s Friday post, and his underlying FrontPage column from a year ago.

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“Logically,” Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia should make academia safe for a wide variety of speakers and scholars expressing opinions across the entire political spectrum. That’s not going to happen until the hypocrisy chronicled by Liberally Conservative goes away.

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Boring Made Dull rips into Mattel (my link is different; the point is the same) about the ultimate meaning of their inexplicable apology — to “the Chinese people”(!) — for the lead-containing recalled toys:

The seemingly obvious conclusion – that they’ll feed lead paint to your kids to appease the Chinese and maintain their profits – seems almost inescapable.

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First it was Justin at Right on the Right getting photoed with Michelle Malkin.

Now it’s Brain Shavings posing with Laura Ingraham.

Cut it out already.

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Pain Dealer read a post at Lead Us Forward, who blogged about about the American Spectator’s Prowler reporting that James Dobson dissed Fred Thompson in hopes that it would help clear the GOP field for Newt Gingrich to enter the fray. Got that? The answer to Pain Dealer’s question is, “Yes, Dobson has lost his political mind. He lost it over two years ago.”

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Put down the coffee, and remove all sharp objects from the vicinity.

Then read on, and link over.

OK, here we go — Conservative Culture notes a party’s upcoming political convention in Los Angeles.

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Last Thursday, Large Bill noted why Ted Stevens, who yours truly said should resign quite a while ago, needs to go — NOW. Monday, John Fund extended the immediate resignation invitation to Don Young, the state’s sole congressman. The GOP needs to clean the stables, so that people on the other side like Murtha, Williams Jefferson, and Mollohan, et al have no equivalent company.

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FYI from FYI News: “Kaleigh Lynn Pituch was born to Andy and Charissa early Monday evening, weighing 8 pounds 4 oz, and was 21 inches long.” Congrats to all.

From East Charlotte, North Carolina:

Posted on Sun, Sep. 16, 2007

Proving it’s never too late to learn, retiree discovers 88 keys to happiness

Harlan Creech fell in love with the piano when Woodrow Wilson was president.

It was 1920 and Creech was 8 — a creek-splashing, rabbit-trapping dreamer stuck with a squeaky violin his parents made him play. His sister got the piano, which sounded to him like a sunny day set to music. He’s wanted to play ever since.

Creech grew up to be a husband, a father and a Methodist minister — a job where he made time for everyone but himself.

Helping folks cope with life’s burdens taught him that you don’t always get to have what you love most. And even when you do, you may not get to keep it.

But he also discovered that if you don’t give up, keep pushing forward, there might be a second chance.

That’s what happened with the piano. When he finally got his hands on the keys, it would ease the pain of his own deep loss.

Creech will be 95 this week. At a time of life when most people cling to the familiar — playing bridge, working crossword puzzles or pursuing other hobbies they’ve perfected for years — he’s thrown himself into a whole new world. He delights in the struggle to turn sharps and flats into Mozart and “Over the Rainbow.”

It’s not unusual for retirees to take up the piano. But Creech’s teacher, Dzidra Reimanis, has never heard of anyone beginning lessons so late in life. She ought to know — she’s 80 and has been teaching for 50 years.

Creech knows he’ll never be a great pianist. He just wants to be able to turn out respectable versions of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and other hymns his wife, Beckie, used to play.

Go here for the rest of the story.