Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Q&A Question Sparks Heritage Foundation Eruption

Think Tank Watch is the first to admit that think tank panels are often dull. 

But if you were at Heritage Foundation's 4-hour Benghazi event yesterday, you were in for a real treat.  It all started with an American University student in the back of the think tank's Allison Auditorium...

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post does a good job of explaining the outburst of emotions at the Heritage Foundation yesterday.  Here are some excerpts:
...Then Saba Ahmed, an American University law student, stood in the back of the room and asked a question in a soft voice. “We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there’s 1.8 billion followers of Islam,” she told them. “We have 8 million-plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don’t see them represented here.”
Panelist Brigitte Gabriel of a group called ACT! for America pounced. She said “180 million to 300 million” Muslims are “dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization.” She told Ahmed that the “peaceful majority were irrelevant” in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and she drew a Hitler comparison: “Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazis drove the agenda and as a result, 60 million died.”
“Are you an American?” Gabriel demanded of Ahmed, after accusing her of taking “the limelight” and before informing her that her “political correctness” belongs “in the garbage.”
“Where are the others speaking out?” Ahmed was asked. This drew an extended standing ovation from the nearly 150 people in the room, complete with cheers.
The panel’s moderator, conservative radio host Chris Plante, grinned and joined in the assault. “Can you tell me who the head of the Muslim peace movement is?” he demanded of Ahmed.
“Yeah,” audience members taunted, “yeah.”

Here is a video of how it all went down.