Excerpt:
Dave Stein at CounterContempt purports to refute the information Pamela Geller has provided about Rick Perry's questionable associations. It would be reassuring if he had actually proven Perry to be clear of suspicion in these areas, but unfortunately that is not the case.
1. The curriculum.
Stein contends that the Atlas Shrugs reader who provided information about the Texas curriculum about Islam that the Aga Khan Foundation developed "was quoting from the abstracts (summaries) of the sessions that the teachers who volunteer for the Muslim Histories and Culture Project (MHCP) attend," and not from the curriculum itself. He assures us that a "a 60-something-year-old world history teacher with a Master's Degree" can "read books from various points of view and reach his own conclusions," and that "the training involved no pro-Islam proselytizing."
It is odd that the teacher sessions would involve whitewashing of Islamic teaching and of its historical record, but that the curriculum itself would not, and Stein doesn't explain how that happened. Nor does he explain why we should trust his 60-something-year-old world history teacher. And even if his world history teacher is extremely knowledgeable about Islam, the material presented at Atlas Shrugs did not involve proselytizing, which he assures us is not happening, but whitewashing, which he does not address. And while I would love to take his word for it, arguments from authority are the weakest of all arguments, and he ultimately presents nothing to assure anyone that the questionable material in the teacher sessions is not making its way into the classroom. After all, what are the teacher sessions for, if not to train the teachers on how to present the material in the classroom?