Harry's Place reports that the Grauniad has fired their junior terrorjournalist. Their media people (login [email protected] / grauniad - thanks to Samizdata) are rather unhappy at the way that bloggers got him binned and as a result do their best to spin history in a way that would make Messrs Blair and Campbell proud. Firstly they indicate that the enite flap was caused by American bloggers, conveniently ignoring - until the end of the article - the fact that the Indpendant, the Sun and (IIRC but not mentioned in the article) the Torygraph had all picked up on Dilpazier Aslam's past.
As for the bloggers, the fact that Laban Tall, Norm, Harry, and a host of other blogs from this side of the pond were jumping up and down in outrage is conveneiently ignored in the selective attribuations mentioned. Laban actually gets a mention but given that the article starts
Rightwing bloggers from the US, where the Guardian has a large online following, were behind the targeting last week of a trainee Guardian journalist who wrote a comment piece which they did not care for about the London bombings.
the fact that British bloggers, even leftish British bloggers, were also upset is something that it would be hard for a non-blogger to realize.
Scott Burgess, a blogger from New Orleans who recently moved to London, spends his time indoors posting repeated attacks on the Guardian for its stance on the environment, its columnists such as Polly Toynbee, and its recent intervention in the US presidential election campaign.
He pitched into Mr Aslam, who as it happened, beat him to the traineeship on the Guardian. Googling the 27-year-old Muslim's name, Mr Burgess picked up some articles the journalist had openly written in the past for Hizb ut-Tahrir websites and denounced him on his blogspot, The Daily Ablution, saying: "He is on record supporting a world-dominant Islamic state." [...]
Mr Burgess fished out a website article written by Mr Aslam before September 11 for Hizb ut-Tahrir. He quoted one line: "Establishment of Khilafah [the worldwide Islamic caliphate] is our only solution, to fight fire with fire, the state of Israel versus the Khilafah state."
I could be wrong but my recollection is that Scott has been in London for some years so the snark about recently moved seems somewhat misplaced. As does the "spends his time indoors", a regular reader of the Ablution would note that Scott has done a lo of travelling for someone indoors.
The fact that Dilpazier Aslam did more than write a few articles five years ago (or is that recently to the Grauniad?) but was in fact employed by them as late as June last year and refused to resign when the Grauniad asked him is nicely skated over, as are the other statements that he and Hisb ut Tahrir have made. And of course that doesn't include criticising the apparent anti-semitism inherent in the one statement they do print, apparently its OK to establish the Khilafah if it is to fight the Jews!
Likewise interesting was the way that they try to criticise the Sun's Littlejohn comment that "A Guardian journalist has been unmasked as an Islamist extremist". Given that Dilpazier Aslam is a member of an Hizb ut Tahrir, an organization that even the BBC calls extreme, and prefered (as noted above) to resign from the Grauniad rather than from Hizb ut Tahrir this seems to be an accurate label.
Such respect as I may have had for the Grauniad has now disappeared, particularly given that the piece is bylined "By a staff reporter" - indicating that the hack in question lacks the gonads to admit to writing this shameful piece.