O’keefe’s NPR sting also nets … Pamela Geller?
Conservative activist James O’Keefe today released a sting video showing an NPR fundraising official saying impolitic things to a couple of (fake) potential Muslim donors. A key part of the sting was the creation of a hoax website for the fake group the donors represented, the Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC).
The website for MEAC read a lot like a right-wing cartoon version of radical Islam — so perhaps it’s not surprising that a few notoriously anti-Muslim bloggers were apparently taken in by the hoax website. (It’s not clear that the NPR officials ever saw the site.)
Pamela Geller, the blogger who deserves much of the credit for starting the “ground zero mosque” controversy, seized on MEAC’s website way back in January, pointing to passages on the website that promoted the bogeyman of sharia:
“We must combat intolerance to spread acceptance of Sharia across the world,” the site read. And added: “One path is continued confusion, hatred, intolerance and discrimination, and the other is the truth and beauty of the Quran. America has been struggling with which road to choose primarily because it does not know or understand the beauty of our holy teachings.”
There’s a chance that Geller was in on O’Keefe’s hoax all along (I’ve e-mailed her inquiring about this), but her January post certainly comes off as genuine.