Saturday, September 05, 2009

Boomerang

It's very hard to keep with the American right's daily diet of "outrage" and conspiracy. But apparently a convoluted row involving the decision of Yale University Press not to publish the infamous Mohammed cartoons in a book about the reaction to the cartoons is actually evidence of a secret plot by Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal to push an extreme Islamist agenda at American educational institutions.

But leave aside the lack of evidence for this theory. If Prince al-Waleed is really part of the Islamo-Vanguard, this would seem to pose a major problem. Because his holding company (Kingdom Holdings) owns nearly 6% of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, and one of its subsidiaries carries Fox News on satellite channels in the Middle East. The links are so close that News Corp wants to buy a bigger stake in its regional carrier Rotana Media from Prince al-Waleed (who could probably use the cash given the hit he took on Citigroup; alt. link).

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is part of the Islamist agenda. Although this might seem implausible, the plan is clearly to make the conservative agenda look as clownish as possible, thus boosting support for the Islamist cause.

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