Thursday, March 24, 2005

David Horowitz and the SAF:Valiantly defending the left from ... oh, get real. Part 3.


Assuming that you're read the first two parts here and here, we can finally get to the bottom of this saga.

As we've already noticed, the initial response from the SAF was (how shall I put this diplomatically?) pretty well content-free but, in a stunning example of coincidence, the SAF has in fact (unintentionally, I'll bet) provided us with the perfect laboratory to test their claims. And it is a beaut.

Just consider the obvious head-to-head comparison: alleged persecuted conservative and Foothill College student Ahmad Al-Qloushi goes public with his complaint on Dec. 4, 2004, while alleged persecuted liberal and Foothill College student Michael Wiesner publishes his article on Dec. 15, 2004. You couldn't have designed a more perfectly-controlled experiment, and it remains only to see the difference in their treatment from Horowitz and the SAF. Enter Google.

First, let's see just how big Wiesner hit it in Google space, by searching on a combination of "Michael Wiesner" and "Foothill College". Ehhhhhhh ... not bad, but not overly impressive: 18 hits, most of them to other blogs or back to the SAF or Front Page. It's safe to say the SAF didn't do Wiesner any favours in terms of getting his story out there.

And Al-Qloushi? Jesus freaking Christ! 307 hits! Front Page Mag. The SAF. Yahoo. Campus Report Online. Media Matters. ABC News. The Washington Times, for Chrissake! And on and on and on. How the hell to explain this? It's not hard if you check the SAF's own "Foothill College" page, at which Ahmad is the "Special Guest Star" while Wiesner is "Second Tall Man at End of Bar".

Feast your eyes on the Ahmad adulation -- Ahmad is a "dissident Arab" who "gets the treatment", Ahmad is punished for "embracing the Constitution," Ahmad is smeared by being compared to Adolph Hitler, Ahmad is the subject of a Washington Times article, right-wing dingbat David Limbaugh rushes to Ahmad's defense, etc., etc. And Wiesner? Oh, look, there he is: "A liberal student speaks out at Foothill." Can you even stand the excitement?

And let's not forget, Wiesner's claims (remember those?) allegedly involved ongoing abuses and discrimination over a period of months. And Al-Qloushi's horror story? He got an F on an essay and, according to him, was told by the prof to see a shrink. Bummer. It just doesn't seem fair, does it? Ahmad hits the big time, while Wiesner makes a small splash and pretty much falls off of everyone's radar screen.

I just can't imagine why that would be. I mean, it's not like the SAF would show preferential treatment based on, oh, I don't know, ideological positions, would it? It's purely a mystery.

AFTERTHOUGHTS: I realize that I drifted a bit off-topic from David Horowitz to the SAF, but it isn't hard to bring the focus back to Davey boy. Once again, let's let Google do the talking. Horowitz's connection with Wiesner? And Horowitz's connection with Al-Qloushi? That pretty much sums it up, no?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yep.