May 26, 2003

Shawn Steel gets a belated correction

According to this:

Student journalists at the University of Southern California have backed off, ever so slightly, from an April 14 report on former California Republican Party Chairman Shawn Steel's supposedly anti-Islam remarks at a campus rally. Steel was quoted as saying that Islam "has a cancer growing inside it, which hates Jews, hates freedom and hates Western society. ... The disease of Islam must be rectified. It's kill or be killed."
In a clarification published Wednesday [apparently not available online yet --lw], the Daily Trojan newspaper said Steel's notes indicated that his remarks were directed at "an extremist faction within Islam and not Islam itself."

Blake Hennon, summer editor of the newspaper, said there was no tape recording of the remarks, but that he was "inclined to believe Steel on that point."

The episode had GOP leaders rushing to separate themselves from their outspoken former chairman. The new GOP boss, Palo Alto attorney Duf Sundheim, met with the Council on American-Islamic Relations to smooth things over.

Great way to smooth things over. For the truth about "mainstream" organizations like CAIR, see Salon's "Islam's Flawed Spokesman" report. According to this, the gent who drafted CAIR's first letter of condemnation has this to say: "He insists that Islam has a disease, and that is extremely offensive."

I knew from the start what Steel meant, and I think anyone with the ability to read headlines knows he's correct. However, several "liberal" bloggers gleefully took his remarks out of context. I'm sure they'll be all over the DailyTrojan's correction. Just you wait.

Posted to Terrorism at May 26, 2003 12:41 PM

Comments

Lonewacko

Thanks for your keen observations. The USC Daily Trojan comes clean, much like the LA TImes and NY Times recently.

The big lesson for me, was not the poor DT reporting. Standard fare for conservatives. But the response from CAIR frightening in that it might actually represent a large number if not a majority view of Muslims living in America. If so, then our republic does indeed have a problem with hundreds of thousands of unhappy Muslims. Vigorously opposed to the Iraqi libertion, Jews, Bush, and Western Civililzaiton. Moreover, the silent "majority" of moderate Muslims seem too intimidated [several have told me personally ] to speak out. This is destructive for democracy, tolerance and defeating defeating enemies of freedom and mass murderers.

Shawn Steel
Immediate Past Chair
California Republican Party

Posted by: Shawn Steel at June 7, 2003 01:37 PM

Lonewacko

Thanks for your keen observations. The USC Daily Trojan comes clean, much like the LA TImes and NY Times recently.

Shawn Steel
Immediate Past Chair
California Republican Party

Posted by: Shawn Steel at June 7, 2003 01:37 PM