UN group "shocked" new Libyan gov. wants to declare gays a threat to Islam and the human race. Even today the BBC and NY Times use the word "conservative" to describe the violent Islamic group, the Salafis, but never waiver from the narrative that everything is open and and all things are possible in Egypt and Libya.
2/16/12, "Arab Spring Bears Fruit: Chemical Weapons, Civil War," American Interest, Walter Russel Mead
"During the halcyon days of the protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Western media outlets were filled with lofty predictions: the end of autocracy in the Middle East, the rise of the Arab twitterati youth, and the emergence of a liberal majority in the Middle East that would wipe away decades of tyranny and oppression. One year later, with repression in Egypt, fighting in Libya, and civil war in Syria, these predictions have been revealed for what they were: wishful thinking marred by an absence of critical thought about the region and its history.
Commenter notes startling incompetence of pundit class:
"WigWag says:February 16, 2012 at 9:50 am
I am afraid Via Meadia is right; the “Arab Spring” is little more than a way station on the Muslim world’s relentless march back to the 10th century. What’s amazing is that it was not only liberal internationalists like Tom Friedman who were duped; Friedman can always be counted on to get it wrong. What’s surprising is that neoconservative thinkers like Robert Kagan turned out to be an even bigger apologist for the Arab Spring then his more liberal fellow pundits.
If any thing proves the startling incompetence of our pundit class (Professor Mead excepted) it is the Alice in Wonderland quality of their reporting on the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular."
-------------------
2/13/12, "Libya Tells UN Rights Council: “Gays threaten continuation of human race”," UN Watch, Geneva
---------------------
One reviewer of the 2010 book "Gray Lady Down," about the fall of the NY Times said:
“McGowan’s Gray Lady Down has the great strength of showing how the Times's multicutural relativism on the home front and xenophilia abroad left it completely flat footed when it was called upon to report on the rise of Islamic extremism in America. The Times has developed a dangerous capacity to discover “moderation” in what should be seen as Islamist maximalism and cultural practices and values squarely at odds with American norms."
— Fred Siegel, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a Scholar in Residence at St. Francis College in Brooklyn"
via Instapundit
