Why We Hate Them

Again a service for our readers in a hurry, Speed Coulter...

Title: So Three Arabs Walk Into A Bar ...
Reharsh of the Shoney's Muslim medical student incident.
Some cheap cultural prejudice.
Argues Muslim students were lying.
Gratitous Clinton reference.
Wants them (the students, not the Clintons) to say they're sorry.

Now if you still feel the need to read more, here it is:

So Three Arabs Walk Into A Bar ...
by Ann Coulter
September 18, 2002

Comments on this weeks story will be minimal because, well, it's a pretty damn feeble essay. Three guys got stopped for allegedly saying stuff they deny ever having said.

I know I've personally heard some pretty wacky paranoia since Sept 11 (One citizen in park recently told me in ominous tones about how he saw a bunch of Arab tourists filming the World Trade Center with video cameras last Sept 3, and they were all wearing blue windbreakers. He looked at me as if I should be equally horrified by the sign of Muslim perfidy. Instead, I looked at him as if he had lost his mind.)

Who said what and what really happened is in debate. Maybe the Georgia lady did hear something, or maybe she imagined it. We've all played the game of 'telephone' or 'pass it along' where a message can get incredibly garbled. I'm perfectly willing to believe that both the lady and the medical students were well-meaning and that a misheard conversation, mixed in with our understandable nerves in these times, led to a embarrassing mistake. These things happen.

We'll probably never know the exact truth of what went down and debating this, and devoting an entire essay to it, is pointless. That, of course, didn't stop Coulter. Read on.

AN AMERICAN CITIZEN overheard three Muslims at a Shoney's restaurant laughing about Sept. 11 over breakfast.

"If people thought Sept. 11 was something, wait till Sept. 13."

"Do you think that will bring it down?"

"Well, if that won't bring it down, I have contacts. I'll get enough to bring it down."

Patriot Eunice Stone took down their license plate numbers and called the police as the mirthful Muslims left. (I'd give you the names, but they're too complicated. There's a reason they use numbers at Guantanamo.) Despite the racist hysteria sweeping the nation, the police did not rush out and start rounding up Arabs. They interviewed Stone in person to evaluate her credibility and corroborate her story.

She thinks she heard something, they, as we know, deny it. Coulter's "their names are too complicated" line is the worst part of this paragraph. The height of cultural prejudice is to make fun of names that aren't like yours. How about Kowalski? Or Abrahamowitz? Or Mountbatten? Or Yamato? Or Skutsch? There are a lot of "funny" names out there. I guess people with funny names must be bad people. Please Ann, show a little class.

That night, a little after midnight, one of the two cars being driven by the Muslims ran a toll booth -- at least according to everyone but these beacons of truth. Law enforcement officials soon descended on the cars. According to accounts in The New York Times, the men were uncooperative, refused to answer basic questions, gave false information and told contradictory stories. A bomb-sniffing dog reacted to the presence of explosives in both vehicles. After a careful search, however, no explosives were found and the men were released.

Naturally, therefore, the men and their families accused Americans, especially Southerners, of being ignorant racists. "Just because of the way we look or the way we choose to live our lives, we're persecuted," said the sister of one. Demonstrating her own open-mindedness, she explained the entire incident by saying, "Unfortunately, they stopped in a restaurant in Georgia." No prejudice in that.

Yes, that was a stupid thing for a sister to say. Not that Ann "Doesn't Like Those Funny Arab Names" Coulter should make any waves about stupid racist remarks.

It's interesting that the Muslims' denial of Stone's account was instantly and universally treated as having precisely the same credibility as Bill Clinton denying he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. Even the Islamic Al Sharptons simply assume these guys are lying. The Muslims now say they didn't do it. Their defenders say they were joking. (Who knew the Religion of Peace was so darn funny? Did you hear the one about the release of VX gas in Disneyland?)

Pleaes note the gratuitous Clinton reference.

By my count, the Muslims have given at least five versions of what happened. Eunice Stone has given one consistent story. She has been interrogated by law enforcement officials and is corroborated by another witness.

According to the Boston Globe, the Three Stooges first told law enforcement officers they did it on purpose. Stone, they said, was watching them too closely and this got the poor little darlings' undies in a bundle. So they decided to scare her. One year after Muslims murdered thousands of people on American soil, evidently it's rude to look at three Muslim men decked out in Arabic garb.

Next, the Muslims told reporters that Stone had "put a little salt and pepper into her story." A stunned CNN correspondent blurted out: "Salt and pepper?" He reminded them what Stone had heard them say. "Well, yes, whatever," came the reply.

Third, they tried out the hysterical-woman defense -- used to great effect by Democrats in the Clinton era. One of the Muslims tauntingly demanded to know "how many other people witnessed this event that supposedly took place, first of all?" Well, at least one other person. Stone's son was there and he heard the conversation exactly the same way. He just thought the men were playing his mother and him for suckers. (The Muslims might want to try the Clintonian "she wants to write a book" defense.)

Fourth, the Muslims leapt to their very favorite explanation, the one they haul out at the slightest provocation for almost any occasion: Pogrom-oriented Americans were victimizing them. In a stirring sermon, one of the Arabs advised Americans to "read about other people and read about what they believe before we jump to conclusions."

Yes, it's manifestly absurd for anyone to think Muslims might blow something up. In point of fact, it is only by not reading that Americans have been deluded into spouting the Soccer-Momism about Islam being a "religion of peace." Actually, reading would provide dozens upon dozens of contrary examples from the last year alone.

While I could be jumping the gun -- the night is still young -- it now appears that their final answer is: They were talking about a car. They didn't say anything about 9/11 or 9/13, but the "bring it down" bon mot referred to bringing a car down to Florida. This occurred to them only after meeting with their lawyers. Oh, OK.

No one in the press has bothered to investigate the "car" story further. No one believes them, so what's the point? It would be like chasing down Gennifer Flowers to ask her if it really happened only "once."

Non-terrorist Muslims are crying wolf when they play these games -- talking about blowing up buildings in restaurants, taking a lighter to their sneakers on commercial aircraft, and spending a long time shaving in airplane bathrooms. Intentionally or not, they are giving the real terrorists a cushion for the next attack.

Instead of preying on America's hatred of prejudice, these aspiring Scottsboro Boys should capitalize on America's capacity for forgiveness, admit they did something really stupid, and stop lying.

So the point of this whole column is to get them to say that they're sorry? What a waste of your readers (and my) time.

©2002 Carl Skutsch. All rights reserved.
All opinions expressed herein are those of the author unless otherwise noted
(and it goes without saying that they make more sense than Coulter's opinions.)

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