Steven Emerson has been looking into the Hamas-linked NGO Kind Hearts for Charitable Human Development, whose assets were frozen today by the US Treasury, for quite some time.

In the December 14, 2005 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, here’s how the Council on American-Islamic Relations responded to an article about KindHearts and Emerson—by completely ignoring facts and attacking Emerson as an “Islamophobe:” Plain Dealer’s terrorism ‘expert’ has noted bias.

The Dec. 6 front-page story on the Muslim charity KindHearts was biased. The article purports to discuss “suspicious connections” between KindHearts and other now-closed Muslim charities, citing the fact that KindHearts’ chief executive once worked for Global Relief. The article, rife with innuendo and guilt by association, is based almost entirely on the work of Steven Emerson, a reckless and biased self-styled terrorism expert.

Emerson has been ridiculed by journalists and reviewers who write for the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, etc. Even the former director of counterterrorism for the CIA, Vincent Cannistraro, has discredited Emerson.

Given this background, why does The Plain Dealer insist on being Emerson’s cheerleader? Why continue to hold the megaphone for him?

Emerson is an Islamophobe and an anti-Arab bigot on a personal grand inquisition. His work is often touted on virulently hateful anti-Islam Web sites. Yet The Plain Dealer continues to lend Emerson credence by providing spacious platforms for his hunches, complete with charts and graphs.

A story that employs his sham expertise is, from the outset, hopelessly skewed. Surely the paper can be more judicious in choosing its sources.