Defining Satire

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The story of the hundreds of flyers left all over the campus of George Washington University illustrates the leftist bias in academia and in the media. At first, Young America's Foundation or the group's supporters came under suspicion. YAF's official October 9, 2007 statement about the distribution of the posters is HERE, and includes the following:

...Bridgette Behling, the assistant director of the Student Activities Center at GWU, wrote an email to one of the conservative students urging them to disavow hate speech that may originate from any future Foundation events: “due to the inflammatory nature of today’s events [falsified posters], as a good faith effort on behalf of YAF, it is important that YAF drafts a statement which states that you will not allow hate speech to be a part of any of YAF’s events, literature, written or verbal communication planned for Islamofacism Week. This statement should also include your plan for preventing these things from happening as well as the consequences for these things happening. It is important that we have this document should any further incidents occur as we move forward.”...

Later some additional information came to light. According to this article in the university's newspaper the GW Hatchet:

A group of seven GW students sent an e-mail to The Hatchet late Tuesday night [October 9, 2007] admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

The students - Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierney, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah - said their motives were misinterpreted. Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness hung the posters in opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, an event being held beginning Oct. 22.

Kokesh, a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war. Nwigwe and Rammah are also graduate students.

[...]

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is being held at GW and sponsored by the Young America's Foundation, a conservative student group. It will feature several speakers - including controversial conservative author David Horowitz - slated to discuss radical Islam.

One-hundred and forty two colleges nationwide will host the event, according to its Web site. Horowitz is organizing the week.

"While the poster, even if taken seriously was not intended to cause any real harm, the systematic and glorified type of racism represented by this event is being imposed upon us from dangerous divisive outside forces" the e-mail said.

In the letter, members of the organization said their intent was to shed light on the week - which they called racist.

When all else fails, playing the race card is the tactic — never mind that adherents to and supporters of Islamo-fasicsm cross race lines.

Miss Beth of the blog Miss Beth's Victory Dance provides the following, which I haven't been able to confirm:

It was a hoax [they claim satire] perpetrated by the Saudi-funded radical islamic front group Muslim Student Association.

If true, no surprise there. Anything to stir things up instead of participating in a reasoned discussion to show that the term "Islamofascism" is a misnomer. Anything to discredit Islamo-fascism Awareness Week, which begins on October 22 at university campuses all over the United States, according to the left sidebar at FrontPage Magazine:

Berkeley -- Nonie Darwish, October 22

Brown -- Robert Spencer, October 24

Cal Poly -- Greg Davis, October 25

Cal State Fullerton -- Nonie Darwish

Clemson -- Mike Adams, October 25

Columbia -- Phyllis Chesler, Ibn Warraq, Christina Hoff Sommers

Columbia -- Sean Hannity, David Horowitz, October 26

DePaul -- Robert Spencer, October 25

Emory -- David Horowitz, October 24

George Mason -- Luanah Saghieh, Alan Nathan, October 22

Lawrence University -- Jonathan Schanzer

Maryland --Michael Ledeen

Michigan -- David Horowtz, October 23

Northeastern -- Daniel Pipes, October 24

Ohio State -- David Horowitz, October 25

Penn -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Penn State -- Rick Santorum, October 23

Rhode Island -- Robert Spencer, October 24

San Francisco State -- Melanie Morgan, October 24

Stanford -- Wafa Sultan

Temple -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Tulane -- Ann Coulter, October 22

UC Santa Barbara -- Dennis Prager, October 25

UC Irvine -- Ann Coulter

UCLA -- Nonie Darwish, October 24

UCLA -- Frank Pastore, John Ziegler

USC -- Ann Coulter, October 25

Virginia -- Frank Gaffney

Washington -- Kirby Wilbur

Washington -- Michael Medved, October 25

Wisconsin -- David Horowitz, October 22

Hot Air has this update about one of the "masterminds" behind the posters distributed at GWU:

As soon as I saw it, the name Adam Kokesh rang a bell. He’s the Marine vet who got in trouble for wearing his uniform to anti-war protests, and who heads up the Iraq Veterans Against the War....

The situation at GWU could have been much worse, I suppose. Just think of the uproar which could have ensued had a group distributed posters of the Danish cartoons satirizing MTP!