PALLYWOOD: FROM PAKISTAN TO CAIR. In his piece entitled Look Forward to Anger, Christopher Hitchens notes, almost tangentially:

I have actually seen some of these demonstrations, most recently in Islamabad, and all I would do if I were a news editor is ask my camera team to take several steps back from the shot. We could then see a few dozen gesticulating men (very few women for some reason), their mustaches writhing as they scatter lighter fluid on a book or a flag or a hastily made effigy. Around them, a two-deep encirclement of camera crews. When the lights are turned off, the little gang disperses. And you may have noticed that the camera is always steady and in close-up on the flames, which it wouldn't be if there was a big, surging mob involved.

This of course sounds very familiar. We've seen this kind of thing before:


On more than one occasion we have seen Muslims take advantage of situations--with the willing cooperation of the media--to exaggerate their numbers and outrage. But you don't have to go to Gaza or even Islamabad to see this.

The same mentality is demonstrated by CAIR--most recently in their vast exaggeration of the numbers of Muslims living in the US and of whom they claim to represent.

In addition, as we've posted about before, Daniel Pipes wrote about the anti-Islamic bias attacks that were reported by CAIR in 2004 and found that they showed "sloppiness, exaggeration, and distortion.--two of the claims were actually cases of arson committed by the Moslem store owners themselves, using the story of anti-Islamic bias to cover what they had done. The American Thinker describes a third such case. Other reported attacks lacked evidence or were actually reported by CAIR twice. Further incidences of falsified accounts of Muslim hate crimes going back to 2003 can be found on Michelle Malkin's blog: Myth of the Muslim hate crime epidemic and More Muslim hate crime myths. Furthermore, a report on NPR investigating the reporting of bias crimes in general noted that

any bias incident, from a Muslim being yelled at from a passing car, to a Muslim being profiled on a plane, can wind up in CAIR's report.

It seems there is more than just an issue of the rage of the Arab street--or of the planning and lack of spontaneity that has been noted in some of the rallies. There is just straightforward and consistent exaggeration.

Technorati Tag: Pallywood and Media Bias and CAIR and Christopher Hitchens.