Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Arab-American Rima Fakih Wins Miss USA Pageant, Spurs Right-Wing "Nontroversy"

As stupid as this "controversy" may be, I felt I had to write about it because of how stupid it really is.  The latest winner of the Miss USA pageant is Rima Fakih.  Her family is of Lebanese decent and her victory is enough to send the far right into a dizzy.

Right-wing blogger Debbie Schlussel had commented on Fakih, trying to paint her as a radical Muslim, and the competition, as a system rigged by "Dhimmi" Donald Trump - a dhimmi, according to Wikipedia, "is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law."

Every good story needs a hero, and Schlussel, along with the rest of the right, have picked Miss Oklahoma to play the victim. This right-wing nontroversy has already made its way to Fox News in record time, where loser Morgan Elizabeth Woolard, discussed how she was fed a loaded question by the judges and that she believed the system was rigged, and Fox News, being the stand-up news organization that they are, didn't question Woolard's accusations - they ran with them. Ever think this is just another instance of a disgruntled loser?

One of Schlussel's main supporting arguments against Fakih is that she shares a last name with many in Hezbollah. Schlussel names a few of these "close relatives and cousins" without giving a clear lineage connecting them to Fakih.

As an experiment, lets look at the popular surname Kelley/Kelly. Many of America's leadership share this name, like State Representative Troy Kelley of Washington, Kasha Kelley of Kansas, or State Senator Delores G. Kelley of Maryland. Are these elected officials of America anyway related to the infamous Irish-Australian bushranger (some may call terrorist) Ned Kelly, who defied colonial rule?

If I were Schlussel, then the answer would be yes.

Schlussel also points out that Fakih's ancestral city in Lebanon also gave rise to a couple terrorists. I guess that means everybody born in Braunau am Inn in Austria could be considered a genocidal Nazi like their most famous child, Adolf Hitler.

Another attack made by Schlussel was against Donald Trump. Because a Muslim won, the contest was obviously rigged, and Woolard's response to her question, one regarding Arizona's recent immigration law, was the wrong one - Woolard came out in support of the law.

Schlussel went on to write the following:
I knew the classy Miss Oklahoma USA, Elizabeth Woolard–who gave a good and somewhat educated answer about Arizona’s immigration law (watch the video, above)–would lose, the minute she said she supported the Arizona law. After all, the right answer was to say how “unAmerican” and “oppressive” this law is and how great these illegal aliens are for doing “the work that some Americans just won’t do” (like kidnapping, rape, stealing jobs, and driving down wages).
This sounds familiar, and maybe because Donald Trump had uttered very similar words on Larry King last month.
Donald Trump dropped by Larry King Live to talk the topic du jour, Arizona’s immigration law, and give it his seal of approval. While he admitted that “there are a lot of great people coming in,” he called a boycott on the state “ridiculous” and made the astute observation that, well, “Mexico doesn’t have a lot of blonds.”

Trump expressed the most concern regarding the increased crime rate in Arizona, noting that there are “killings all over the place, shootings all over the place” there now and that the law was a direct result of “the federal government not coming out with a law.” He also expressed dismay at the possible boycotts against Arizona, including that instituted on San Francisco city officials by Mayor Gavin Newsom. And while he stopped short of endorsing racial profiling, he is in favor of “getting them out” if “people come into the country illegally.”
Schlussel also writes that the Shi’ite had overcome their differences with the Sunni aside to win the Miss USA pageant (Fakih is a Shi'ite).  Schlussel writes "as anyone who knows anything about the Islamic world knows, they’ll happily put their internecine Shi’ite-Sunni war on hold, if it means helping Islam in its propaganda war and fight to take over the West."  She conveniently forgets the struggles America continues to face in our wars overseas, where religious bickering had not ended to take on "the West.  If that was the case, war in Iraq and Afghanistan would have ended with stable Islamic democracies gaining control, and as soon as America left, a religious civil war would have broken out.

Who is this terrorist supporting Sunni that funded Shi'ite Fakih?  Imad Hamad, the Regional Director and Senior National Advisor for Public Affairs of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.  Hamad is also Member of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of Neve Shalom & Wahat al-Salam, a national organization dedicated to dialogue, cooperation and a genuine and durable peace between Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis.  Sounds like a real terrorist...

Schlussel sums it up best, and what's funny is that she discredits herself, as well as loser Woolard, by calling the Miss USA pageant a "bimbo contest," implying that even Arizona-loving Woolard is a bimbo.  The term "bimbo," according to Wikipedia, is used to describe "a physically attractive but unintelligent woman."

So what does that make Schlussel?

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