Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear

Cat Stevens Appearance At Sanity Rally Rankles Right Winger

Brian Beutler | October 30, 2010, 2:08PM

Cat Stevens

Conservative bete noir Yusuf Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens) made a guest appearance at the Comedy Central rally today, inspiring an instant backlash from at least one right winger, a group fond of accusing the musician of sympathizing with terrorists.

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Sanity Restored: Photos From The Stewart/Colbert Rally]

Islam was accused in 1989 of sympathizing with Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, after he was quoted saying "In Islam there is a line between let's say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It's got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again."

Since then, he has strenuously insisted that he does not support the fatwa and never did, though he strongly criticizes Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses.

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Nobel Peace Prize

Right Wingers Pitch Fits Over Nobel Peace Prize

Eric Kleefeld | October 9, 2009, 12:44PM

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol

In the immediate wake of President Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a lot of right-wingers have simply gone nuts over it.

To be very clear, we're not talking about any old criticism or disagreement. Reasonable people can believe this award was not deserved and that Obama has not at this time demonstrated the true accomplishments required. (Unreasonable people can do it, too -- Glenn Beck's got a pretty good joke about it.) We're talking about real over the top invective.

Bill Kristol likens Obama receiving the prize to Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union -- except that Kristol thinks the Communist leader was more impressive:

Mikhail Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. A year later, he was out of power and the Soviet Union had dissolved.

I don't mean to compare Barack Obama to Gorbachev, who was, whatever his faults, a truly historic and courageous figure. But let's hope the parallel extends this far: that a year from now the Democrats suffer a major electoral repudiation, and that the New Liberalism goes the way of Reform Communism. And that, beginning in 2013, Obama will have lots of free time to spend hobnobbing with Gorbachev on the international celebrity circuit.

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