Tariq Ramadan returned to the United States, six years after his visa was revoked by the Bush administration, in order to either a) continue to his vitally important work as a leading voice of Muslim moderation, or b) continue his vitally important work as a stealth jihadist. You can probably figure out which of these two messages resonates with the MSM.
Starting with the New York Times’s April 13 editorial:
Claiming that it was part of the fight against terrorism, the George W. Bush administration revived the loathsome cold war practice of denying visas to foreign intellectuals, artists and others because of their views.
In January, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lifted the ban on two prominent scholars: Adam Habib, deputy vice chancellor of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, and Prof. Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University. She needs to go further and renounce ideological exclusion.
Moving on to the Los Angeles Times:
Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, has said he opposes terrorism and Islamic extremism and promotes peaceful solutions. He has criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq and U.S policies in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
And then there’s the Chicago Tribune:
(Chicago chapter CAIR Director Ahmed) Rehab said Ramadan’s visa was originally yanked by a “paranoid” Bush administration. He said Ramadan was, and still is, one of the most popular Muslim voices in the world. He is grateful that the Obama administration realized the absurdity of barring an intellectual to speak in the U.S.
Sounds like a hell of a guy, doesn’t he?
Ramadan is an intellectual who opposes extremism and not only that, he’s Swiss for crying out loud! Only Bush could conjure up the specter of a Swiss terrorist. How do we know that Ramadan is a moderate, peace-loving pal of the west? Because he says so.
Shoot, Newsweek gave him the ink to say so. Apparently nobody in the MSM has heard of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya, which both permits and encourages Muslims to lie to infidels if and when so doing advances Islam.
Author Robert Spencer, who is about as well-versed in the nuances of Islam and the doctrine of jihad as anyone, has repeatedly pointed out that there is a lot in Ramadan’s past that suggests he is anything but the “moderate” intellectual he portrays himself to be. It seems just as likely, if not more so, that Ramadan will use his time in the U.S. to say all the right things publicly, while he privately encourages other stealth jihadists.
When Ramadan’s visa was revoked in 2004, the public reason given was the Ramadan had donated money to a “charity” that funneled the cash to terrorists in Palestine. Ramadan claimed he didn’t know about those ties. Whoops — as Daniel Pipes pointed out in the New York Sun and as Fouad Ajami explained in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, both written in 2004 while Ramadan was getting the boot, there is great deal more to be suspicious about in Ramadan’s past than one “inadvertent” donation.
Every story, we are taught, has two sides. Funny that there isn’t a mention about Ramadan’s questionable history and associations anywhere in the old media. Had Ramadan’s brother’s wife’s third cousin been employed by Haliburton, I’m sure we would have heard all about it. But the possibility of terrorist ties? Who cares?
For the leftist media, the only two sides to this story are: 1) Tariq Ramadan, Muslim moderate and intellectual, is finally getting a fair shake from Uncle Sam, and 2) George W. Bush is still a fascist. Nothing more needs be said.
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