The Patriot Post® · Fox Caves to Islamist Sensibilities

“This is not who your party is. Your party is not anti-Israel; [Ilhan Omar] is. Think about this. She is not getting this anti-Israel sentiment doctrine from the Democrat Party. So if it’s not rooted in the party, where is she getting it from? Think about it. Omar wears a hijab, which according to the Quran, 33:59, tells women to cover so they won’t get molested. Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?” —Judge Jeanine Pirro, “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” Fox News

Ordinarily, one might reasonably assume that the host of an opinion show expressing an opinion, followed by a question designed to elicit debate, would be firmly inside the boundaries of acceptable discourse.

These are not ordinary times. Fox initially pulled Pirro’s show last Saturday, airing a repeat episode of its documentary series “Scandalous” in Pirro’s time slot. When asked why Pirro’s show wasn’t being aired, Fox refused to answer. “We’re not commenting on internal scheduling matters,” a spokesperson stated last Saturday. On Sunday, CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that Pirro had been suspended for two weeks.

That same day, Fox released a statement denouncing Pirro’s remarks. “We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro’s comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar,” it stated. “They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.” Fox also released a statement from Pirro. “I’ve seen a lot of comments about my opening statement from Saturday night’s show and I did not call Rep. Omar un-American. My intention was to ask a question and start a debate, but of course because one is Muslim does not mean you don’t support the Constitution,” Pirro said. “I invite Rep. Omar to come on my show any time to discuss all of the important issues facing America today.”

Thus, Fox joins the coordinated effort to delegitimize one of the more important realities of our time. In a 2016 column, Andrew McCarthy — a key prosecutor in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case — didn’t ask what Pirro asked about Sharia law and the Constitution. He stated it in no uncertain terms. “Sharia is antithetical to the Constitution, to the very foundational American principle that the people may make law for themselves,” he asserted.

Why? “Sharia is not religion,” he expounded. “Sharia is a totalitarian societal structure and legal corpus that anti-American radicals seek to impose.”

Not just radicals. As the National Center for Constitutional Studies explains, “shariah is held by mainstream Islamic authorities — not to be confused with ‘radical,’ ‘extremist’ or ‘political’ elements said to operate at the fringes of Islam — to be the perfect expression of divine will and justice and thus is the supreme law that must comprehensively govern all aspects of Muslims’ lives, irrespective of when or where they live.”

So, is questioning one’s religious dogma as it relates to one’s constitutional fealty out of bounds? As columnist M. Catharine Evans reminds us, it depends on who’s doing the asking. During the confirmation hearing for Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called Barrett’s Catholic beliefs “controversial.” “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein asserted. “And that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.”

Of course, Feinstein was defending one of the Left’s foremost “religious” dogmas, better known as abortion on demand — now apparently including post-birth abortion on demand. If Barrett’s “dogma” is fair game, why not Feinstein’s?

And why not Ihan Omar’s?

As Evans asserts, “When the popular Judge Jeanine gets removed from her show for confronting Jew-hatred by an elected representative, yet Omar, who had to delete anti-Semitic tweets, and who is coddled by an Islamic extremist organization known as CAIR, gets an apology, something is insanely upside-down over at Fox.”

Upside down, or indicative? In 2015, conservative-leaning Rupert Murdoch turned over control of the network to his left-leaning sons, James and Lachlan. Ever since then, the network — in what The New York Times described in 2017 as “generational change at one of the globe’s most powerful media conglomerates” aimed at ridding the network of its of “roguish, old-guard internal culture” (read: conservative) — has moved steadily leftward.

The future? Uncertain: Fox News will be spun off as a separate entity from Fox’s merger with Disney.

What is certain is that while Pirro was getting suspended, former CNN contributor and interim DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile was getting hired. “You can be darn sure that I’m still going to be me on FOX News,” Brazile stated. “I’m going to do what I always do: and dish it out straight, exactly as I see it, with just as much New Orleans hot sauce as folks expect.”

Dish it out straight? Brazile was tossed off CNN for collusion with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to furnish verbatim questions that would be asked during the Clinton’s 2016 primary debate with Bernie Sanders. And when Brazile was confronted, she initially lied about doing so.

Fox’s rationale for hiring her? According to an employee who spoke on condition of anonymity but claimed to know the details of her contract, Brazile will not have anything to do with campaign debates or town halls.

So what? Furthermore, considering the legions of leftists who would undoubtedly jump at the chance to work for Fox News, why would the network choose to employ a documented cheater and liar?

In the meantime, the usual suspects are playing familiar roles. “Fox News must clearly state that Jeanine Pirro will not be allowed back on the air after her long history of Islamophobic hate rhetoric, and the network must also take similar action against other Islamophobic hosts like Tucker Carlson,” declared Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) executive director Nihad Awad in a statement.

That would be the same CAIR that remains an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case — and the same Nihad Awad who declared his support for Hamas in 1994, despite its designation as a terrorist group by the federal government.

As for the term “Islamophobia,” Muslim American reformer Shireen Qudosi aptly describes it as “a term that has no tangible meaning and has extended from initially meaning ‘fear of Islam’ to being any perceived criticism toward Islam or Muslims (even if it comes from other Muslims).”

She also has a warning for those who embrace the contemptible political correctness intended to shut down that criticism. “Omar is part of a growing legislative arm of the Islamist body, a body that was already well-formed with lobbies, cultural icons, and academics,” she writes. “Yet, as a Muslim reformer, my concern is less with Omar and more so with the debilitating chaos, controversy, and polarizing communication breakdown she brings. That is what Islamists do. They create chaos because they thrive in chaos.”

Fox News is abetting that chaos. Shame on them.