Grover Norquist Under Fire?

The InstaPundit is on this. I sat down in front of the Frank Gaffney piece this morning and read for what seemed like two weeks, but I had to quit when I ran out of crystal meth. Now I am patiently waiting for somone at the NRO Online to summarize it for me. However, the soundbite is that Grover Norquist is far too cozy with some evil Islamists, and has persisted in the relationship after being advised as to the true nature of his associates.

I am fascinated (but not enough to snort more crystal meth) because Grover Norquist is the arch-villian of the Krugman Conspiracy.

I don't subscribe to the conspiracy (surprised?), and think that Prof. Krugman waay over-rates the Norquistian influence, but still, it will be interesting to see how (or more accurately, whether) Special Agent Krugman's conspiracy theory changes if Norquist is toppled by righties.

UPDATE: Mad Max is not so angry:

Our widely-sought verdict here at MaxSpeak is that on this flap, GN is more right than wrong, and Horowitz stooge FG is more wrong than ever.

MORE: The CalPundit is also a skeptic (and a critic):

...today's article by Frank Gaffney is the longest and most detailed yet. Unfortunately, the article is so poorly written that it's almost impossible to follow, and the gist of it seems to be that Norquist is associated with people who are associated with organizations that are associated with radical Islamists. That's a pretty long chain of association.

As near as I can tell, the key groups here are the American Muslim Council (AMC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with supporting roles played by several organizations that are funded by the Saudi government. So the question is: are these organizations moderate mainstream Muslim groups, as they claim, or are they apologists for terrorism and fronts for Saudi Wahhabism? And does Norquist's Islamic Institute actually have a strong relationship with any of them?

We're hardly going to resolve those longstanding questions here, but my initial take is that Gaffney's article is fairly weak. Still, I could be wrong, and Norquist certainly strikes me as the kind of loony fanatic who might very well overlook a sympathy for recreational terrorism in his colleagues as long as they supported lower taxes. Stay tuned.

Comments

[Jim Elbe]

Interesting. I read it last night. Sawicki and Calpundit are pretty far left and they are waving this accusation off. Frank Gaffney is a crackpot? Steve Emerson too? Horowitz too? They ALL found each other and decided to beat-up on a fellow right-winger. Quite a coincidence.

[Brad DeLong]

Ummm.... Gaffney is the guy who spent the late 1980s warning us that Gorbachev was a trick... that perestroika was a Trojan Horse... that the idea was to get the West to disarm so that the Soviets could conquer the world!!!! Horowitz is Horowitz...

I've got to come down on the side of the Sesame Street character on this one...