In “Russia Accusations a Distraction From Gabbard’s Actual Troubling Ties,” (FAIR, Oct. 24, 2019),
Ari Paul claims Gabbard’s alleged
pro-Hindutva views are a greater concern than Clinton and MSM’s fabricated Russian
accusations—given these charges, as Paul himself admits, are unsubstantiated, it stands to reason that nearly everything would be a greater concern—yet he never specifies
what he or his various handpicked, handwringing sources believe Gabbard, in
light of her dubious RSS ties, would do if elected president. Nor does Paul cite much in the way of rebuttal
to the accusations, employing instead a heavy-handed, one-sided argument against
Gabbard and the nebulous doom that she represents. As a result, the allegations come across as little more than fear-mongering, as if Paul is manipulating current paranoia about
foreign interference in American politics to exploit religious bigotry.
Not only has the US never had a non-Christian
president, but even among Christian sects, there’s a clear bias. Many worried in the sixties that Kennedy’s Catholicism
would make him a puppet of the pope, or more recently, commentators such as Lawrence
O’Donnell at MSNBC voiced trepidation about Mitt Romney being a Mormon. Similarly,
Bernie Sanders, on those few occasions in which he’s mentioned, is often portrayed negatively by much of the media, which could be construed as anti-Semitism. Since Paul never addresses how Gabbard’s views on
India compare to other presidential candidates—or other US politicians, for
that matter—it seems it’s mostly because Gabbard is a Hindu that her
relationship with India is an issue.
It’s
extremely disappointing that FAIR would take part in what certainly appears
to be a smear aimed at an anti-establishment candidate, an all-too common MSM ploy, as FAIR itself suggests. Upon reading Paul's piece, one wonders if he is equally troubled by Joe Biden’s links to neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
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