Excerpt:
In the week since the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (free registration required) revealed the ties of Mazen Asbahi to Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups and his immediate resignation as an adviser to the Obama campaign, it has been fascinating to watch the Brotherhood response, particularly those of CAIR and the Muslim Student Association.
This is relevant because of the MB's historical ties to radical Islamist terrorism and the ties of members of legacy groups in the United States to multiple terrorist cases, investigations, etc. The line of inquiry would have been just as valid had Mr. Asbahi surfaced in the McCain camp, or any major political campaign.
(For a more complete look at these groups and their history in the United States, see this report I co-authored for the NEFA Foundation during the Holy Land Foundation trial).
The tactics have been familiar to any who follow these groups: attack the messenger, despite the fact that the postings simply laid out Mr. Ashbahi's multiple ties to MB groups, based on SEC filing and public records-and made no allegations of any illegality or impropriety; attack the Wall Street Journal and Glenn Simpson for following up on the report, and having the nerve to call Mr. Asbahi for comment (which is now described as a right-wing expose-in-the-making, as if belonging to FOUR-not one MB groups, as has been widely reported-were not worthy of comment, or a story when the resignation happened); blame the media et al for Mr. Asbahi's resignation, as if an e-mailed question about the relationship from a journalist were somehow an unacceptable practice in seeking information; and paint the entire thing as anti-Muslim bash-fest by the far right (see this wildly inaccurate and deceptive piece by James Zogby in the Huffington Post; and, finally, fail to address ANY of the substantive issues such associations raise.