Although you may not grasp it at first glance, I have discovered that this Chicago Tribune report today bears the stealthy fingerprints of Karl Rove and presidential media operative Tony Snow. The article details the fulsome theories of one Kevin Barrett, a part-time lecturer at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who will teach a class on Islam this coming fall. Already interviewed on a local radio show, he has revealed what he'll be discussing with students, and it has more to do with conspiracy theories than the history of Islam. The Trib asserts:

Barrett believes the U.S. government orchestrated the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, to create support for a larger military budget and a long-term Middle East war. He believes the World Trade Center buildings fell after a controlled demolition and doubts that the hijacker believed to have flown the plane into the Pentagon had the skills to do it. He thinks Osama bin Laden is probably dead. Those views, part of what he plans to discuss with University of Wisconsin students this fall in a class about Islam, have created an uproar at the university and, a few blocks away, among lawmakers in the state Capitol. After Barrett discussed his views on a radio talk show, dozens of Republican lawmakers demanded that university administrators fire him, threatening to cut funding. University Provost Patrick Farrell called the outcry politically motivated and has said that he will allow Barrett, a Muslim convert, to teach "Islam: Religion and Culture," an elective four-credit course.

What the Tribune has not reported - but what I have learned through an unimpeachable intermediary whose identity I cannot disclose - is that Barrett's aunt went to college in New Mexico with Snow's wife's best friend's brother, who served as a regional coordinator for Bush 41's re-election campaign in 1992. Barrett, then 33 and adrift, was hired by the campaign to do GOTV outeach, and fell under the spell of conservative Christian co-workers. He has given his life to Jesus and the GOP ever since. There is a cleverly fabricated back-story (obseqiously parroted by The Tribune) that Barrett was raised by Unitarian parents, wrote a San Francisco travel guide under the name Dr. Weirde, played in two punk bands, and later converted to Islam.

With the GOP at great risk in coming mid-term Congressional elections, the party's political and media gurus are working overtime to gin up national outrage over Leftist excesses in the public sphere. Who could blame them? The threat to our Republic would be palpable if Dhimmocrats were to rule now. The very day that President Bush visited suburban Seattle earlier this year to headline a big-bucks fundraiser for vulnerable GOP freshman Congressman Dave Reichert (WA-8th), there were more of Barrett's cohorts at a public protest, posing for the cameras with their signs of an upside down American flag, and another stating "9/11 Was An Inside Job." Embedded RNC covert ops specialists have also taken over the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. While the SF electorate's voting patterns won't change much within the next decade, the national publicity - amplified by the mainstream media and the blogosphere - is nonetheless priceless for the GOP. Overall, the party's co-intelpro political campaign has been working well, within the expected and exploitable parameters of public opinion. Scripps Howard News Service today reports on a poll showing that more than one-third of those surveyed believe our government engineered or permitted the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America so as to have a pretext for declaring war in the Middle East. The emergence of this sizeable minority block of moonbats should be just enough to ensure that the GOP holds its majority in the U.S. Congress and Senate.

Godspeed to you, Kevin Barrett. And to both of you, Karl and Tony.

TECHNORATI TAGS: MADISON, WISCONSIN, KEVIN BARRETT, 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, GEORGE BUSH, KARL ROVE, TONY SNOW, DAVE REICHERT, REPUBLICANS, CONGRESS

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at August 3, 2006 09:17 AM

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