Believe It Or Not, These People Got Me Fired

In 2005, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, successfully pressured ABC/Disney to fire me from my talk radio job in Washington, DC.

At the time, my primary complaint was "I don't mind getting fired, but by THESE guys? The 'Council of Angry Islamic Radicals?' You gotta be kidding me!" Or as I put it at the time: "Getting drummed out of talk radio by CAIR is like being chased out of your junior-high teacher's job by the guys at the North American Man-Boy Love Association."

That was then, this is now:

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

If you're not familiar with CAIR, you really are missing out on a great group of guys.

CAIR, in particular, has faced persistent claims that it is soft on terrorism. Critics note that several former CAIR officials have been convicted or deported after being charged with fraud, embargo violations, or aiding terrorist training. Spokesmen for the group have also raised eyebrows for offering generic denunciations of terrorism but refusing to condemn by name specific Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah.

In addition, one of the Holy Land Foundation defendants, Ghassan Elashi, founded CAIR's Texas chapter. CAIR's Washington office was also set up in 1994 with $5,000 in seed money from the foundation, according to congressional testimony by a researcher into Islamic extremism, Steven Emerson.

Last year, Senator Boxer of California, a Democrat, withdrew an award she gave to an official at a local CAIR chapter. She said she had concerns about statements by some CAIR officials and about claims of financial links to terrorism.

So why should we be surprised when CAIR--who already refuses to identify Hamas as a terrorist group--is allegedly helping raise money for Hamas? As I said to Ibrahim Hooper when I interviewed him on WMAL, "apparently your position is that 'moderate' Muslims are the ones who only want to kill the Jews."

Congratulations, ABC/Disney. You dumped me and helped out CAIR. You should be so proud.