In his Nov. 4 WorldNetDaily column, Joseph Farah runs to the defense of Walid Phares by bashing criticism of him that he claims is coming from the Council on American-Islamic Relations:
What’s bugging CAIR is that Phares is one of presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s national security advisers. So the organization is touting Phares as an “extremist” (one of its favorite terms for anyone with whom it disagrees) and calling on Romney to let him go.
The anti-Phares campaign by CAIR was originally initiated by “civil rights” operative Randall Todd “Ismail” Hoyer, who began the attacks against Dr. Phares and was later jailed for terrorism offenses.
Mitt Romney may not be my choice for the Republican nomination, but his selection of Phares is a credit to his own discernment about national security issues.
While Farah references Phares’ “extremism” and “terrorism,” he fails to elaborate on the charges, nor does he link to any article in which those charges are detailed.
In fact, as we’ve noted, Phares — a Newsmax columnist and a frequent interview subject at WND — was a top official in a Lebanese sectarian religious militia responsible for massacres during that country’s civil war.
Farah goes on to complain that CAIR “is smearing Walid Phares” — but, as with WND’s similar claim that right-wing anti-Muslim activists are being “slandered,” there’s nothing to explain exactly what the “smear” is.
As with the other story, it appears that the “smear” is that the truth is being told about Phares. And Farah hates the truth when it conflicts with his right-wing agenda.