Spencer, again

An hour ago I received from a correspondent an e-mail that seemed to attribute to me the idea that Robert Spencer has promoted the belief that there is a moderate Islam. A few minutes later I got an e-mail from Robert Spencer in which, after saying that he does not believe in a moderate Islam, he concluded: “I would recommend that one approach only with extreme caution second-hand and tendentious characterizations of my positions by others.” Only when I got Spencer’s e-mail did I realize that he and I were in the To line of the original e-mail, with many other names in the cc line. Spencer’s reply went to me, to the original correspondent, and to the entire list in the cc line.

The first correspondent didn’t actually say that I had attributed to Spencer the belief in a moderate Islam. But by making me the spokesman for the “anti-Moderate Islam” camp, and incorrectly placing Spencer in the “pro-Moderate Islam” camp, he inadvertently associated me with his own incorrect view of Spencer. Spencer, who ought to know better, wrote back to a sizable group of correspondents letting it appear that the first correspondent’s implication about me was correct, i.e., that I was spreading the falsehood that Spencer is a promoter of moderate Islam.

Of course I have never said that Spencer promotes the idea of moderate Islam. That notion is associated most closely with Daniel Pipes, and I have written a lot about that subject in relation to Pipes and others. Spencer knows that I’ve criticized Spencer for three things: his long time failure to be even minimally serious about Muslim immigration (which lately he seems to have corrected); his philosophical and rhetorical liberalism, including his inordinate praise of the anti-Christian feminist leftist Ayaan Hirsi Ali; and his many personal attacks on me in retaliation for the first two criticisms, including his endless charges that I deliberately misrepresenting his positions. He knows that I’ve never criticized him over the moderate Islam idea. How could I have, since he is one of its main critics, and indeed I’ve often quoted his arguments to that effect, most recently earlier today, in a blog entry where I praised Spencer for his “usual excellent clarity on this subject.” How ironic that immediately after I complimented Spencer, he writes an e-mail accusing me of “second-hand and tendentious characterizations” of his positions.

Based on his past pattern of behavior, there’s a good chance that Spencer will now deny that he intended to say this about me, and that I’m just being paranoid and so on, just as once at his website, after calling me a racist whom it wasn’t worthwhile talking to, he indignantly denied having said it. But let us hope that he acts out of character and issues a correction saying that of course I have never criticized him as a believer in the idea that moderate Islam is the solution.

I’m not looking to start an argument with Spencer again. But I have to deal with these things publicly, instead of through e-mails, because, after getting a particularly insane attack from him last year which he refused to retract, I told him that I would never engage in private e-mail correspondence with him again, but would respond publicly at my site to any e-mail I received from him, including attacks on me made to third parties.

Here then are the two e-mails.

Correspondent to LA, Robert Spencer, and others:

Until recently, the conventional wisdom among assorted cognoscenti, TV punditry, Administration spokespersons, Congressional liberals, the mainstream media, even a few well-meaning conservatives, was that Islam’s fault(s) lay not in its moderate stars, but in its Darth Vader Jihadists, who had “highjacked” the peaceful and moderate religion.

The (above) hyperlinked essay is nothing new—not to Lawrence Auster’s View from the Right (Link up with it)—who has been saying it for years. See his “Is There a Moderate Islam?” Parts I and II. Archives, Frontpagemagazine,com. [LA correction: the correspondent is referring to my article, “The Searach for Moderate Islam.”]

The long-held view of such Islamist scholars as Daniel Pipes and even Robert Spenser (cited approvingly by Bruce Thornton, above) was that there was/is (a moderate Islam), and that it was the radical Islamists who had “highjacked” it.

But even Pipes and Spenser—his jihadwatch.com is a daily report——have begun to move toward Mr. Auster’s “cranky” and “obsessive” view: i.e., that the problem is the “religion of peace” (vide Pres. Bush and 60 Minutes’ Morley Safer, and others) itself.

Recently, Charlie Rose conducted two interviews—the first with a newly arrived imam “from a mosque in Brooklyn;” the second, those three perennials, Henry Kissinger, “Zbig” Brzynsky, and Brent (“political solution”) Scowcroft.

As for the first, the imam in company with his Pultizer Prize winning Boswell, NY Times columnist Andrea Elliot, were both interviewed by the pleasant and (at times) obsequious Charlie Rose. It covered the young imam’s life, his impressions of the West, etc,, all in a chummy and gemutlich atmosphere—much chuckling.

In the second, a wide-ranging paticipation of Henry, “Zbig”, and Brent of the situation in the Middle East. Not once—in both cases, the imam’s and the Big Three’s—was the word “Muslim” or “terrorism” mentioned.

Spencer to LA, correspondent, and others:

This is not true. I have never said that there is or was a moderate Islam, but have consistently stated since I began to speak and write publicly that there are moderate Muslims, but moderate Islam does not exist. This has been a central point of my thesis in seven books now, and I would recommend that one abrbrroach only with extreme caution second-hand and tendentious characterizations of my brositions by others.

- end of initial entry -

A reader writes:

By my reading, I see nothing in the first email to suggest that the author’s understanding of Spencer’s position is due to your characterizations. Nothing.

I believe Spencer is correct to defend himself from the author of the first email, by saying to the CC list “don’t trust second-hand characterizations”—meaning the author. In other words, read jihadwatch.com and form your own opinion.

Neither the letter nor the response implicate you for any wrongdoing.

LA replies

Of course Spencer was justified in defending himself from the author of the e-mail for his incorrect characterization. As for whether the author says that I was the source of that view of Spencer, and whether Spencer intended to single out me, I agree that it’s not definite. But it is heavily implied. I have revised the original blog entry to show that the e-mail writer did not actually say that I said that Spencer was promoting moderate Islam, but that his e-mail could be understood that way. You need to see the whole context. I’m presented by the original writer as having the right view, and Pipes and Spencer as having the wrong view and moving toward my view. I’ve been of course a relentless critic of Pipes on this. For Spencer to write back to that group and speak vaguely of unnamed people who make tendentious comments about his work could at least be taken as referring to me. If he only intended the writer of the e-mail as the maker of tendentious reports about him, why didn’t he say so? Also, Spencer has a long history of attacking me for “misrepresenting” him, for making false accusations of him, for deliberately lying about him. He knows that given the context, his attack on unnamed persons who say unwarranted things about him will be seen as referring to me.

Since I was central in the original e-mail, if Spencer did not mean to include me with the author as the source of incorrect statements about him, he should have said so.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2007 06:46 PM | Send