Why Are Palin, Gingrich, and Fox News Doing Bin Laden's Work?

I have been told by Fox commentators Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich that to be a good American I should detest Muslims. After all, it was Muslims from Saudi Arabia who steered the airplanes into the Pentagon and the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. And now they want to build a mosque at ground zero!

But by their own logic, shouldn't I detest Palin and Gingrich? After all, they work for Muslims.
 

[Check out our editorial cartoons on the "ground zero mosque" controversy.]

It's true. A Saudi royal prince is, after Rupert Murdoch and his family, the second largest investor in NewsCorp., the company that runs Fox News, employs Palin and Gingrich and Glenn Beck and which recently gave a million dollar donation to the Republican Party. That's right: the same Saudi royal family that uses the American military as a shield as it feeds our addiction to oil, and preaches hateful anti-Western doctrines to young suicide bombers in their madrassas.

Hey, don't take it from me, or Jon Stewart, or Frank Rich, or other reality-based sources. Let's go to right wing conspiracy central, to Joseph Farah, the publisher of WorldNetDaily, who said this to a conference of conservative activists in January:

There's a flaw, a real compromise in Fox that you need to understand. And if you care about national security, you especially need to be attentive to it. And that is that Fox News parent company is NewsCorp., [which] has a significant ownership by a Saudi prince ... [who] was basically blaming America for what happened on 9-11. Well this guy owns a very significant percentage of the NewsCorp. and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is very dangerous for America.

Do I think that Sarah and Newt are taking their marching orders from Riyadh? No. They may be despicable fear-mongers, but I don't think they are terrorist stooges.

But their actions do raise questions. Is there anything that would make Islamic terrorists like Osama bin Laden happier than to watch the world's media broadcast footage of angry American protesters, whipped into a frenzy by Fox, saying hateful things about Muslims? Why are Sarah and Newt doing bin Laden's work for him? Can't they show just a little patriotism?

• Check out our editorial cartoons on the “ground zero mosque” controversy.
  
• Follow the money in Congress.
• See a gallery of political caricatures.