Andrea Mitchell opened her show on Monday by immediately insisting that an organization, targeted by Muslim gunmen in Texas on Sunday, was both "hateful" and "bizarre." Talking to journalist Ayman Mohyeldin, she fretted, "Do we know anything more about this, frankly bizarre, draw-the-prophet gathering? Is this the first time they've ever held something like this?"
Mohyeldin warned that the American Freedom Defense Initiative is "a group considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center and elsewhere around the world as a hate group." Mitchell underlined, "The provocative event, held by organizations already listed with the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups, was heavily guarded."
The group billed the event in Garland, Texas as one to support free speech. Mohyeldin lectured, "Their aim was to draw contemporary artistic impressions of Prophet Mohammad. And that in itself was at the scene controversial by the Muslim community."
This is the same reporter who sneered that Chris Kyle, the real-life "American Sniper," was a "racist" who went on "killing sprees."
On the networks, Monday, the organization was described as "notorious" and "controversial." CNN chided the "hate group."
After the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, Mitchell worried about Muslims being "under fire" in Europe. A few days later, she fixated on the "far-right" response to the murder of cartoonists by Muslim terrorists.
A partial transcript is below:
5/4/15
12:01
ANDREA MITCHELL: I'm Andrea Mitchell in Washington. Monitoring a developing story involving an anti-Muslim event in Texas and the fatal shooting of two suspects. Federal investigators are in Garland, Texas after a Sunday shootout outside an anti-Muslim cartoon contest where contestants were competing to depict the Prophet Muhammad. The provocative event held by organizations already listed with the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups was heavily guarded.
...
MITCHELL: Do we know anything more about this, frankly bizarre, draw-the-prophet gathering? Is this the first time they've ever held something like this? Was it inspired by the Charlie Hebdo tragedy in Paris?
AYMAN MOHYELDIN: Well, the organization itself, the American Defense of Freedom Initiative, an organization founded by Pamela Geller, as you mentioned, a group considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center and elsewhere around the world as a hate group, was here. Now, according to them, they say they were simply trying to exercise their right to free speech. They were doing this because they felt the Sharia law was creeping into the United States. They wanted to highlight, again, the concern that they had about Islam in the United States and radicalism. They were saying and describing this event as an exercise in freedom of speech.
There were calls, obviously, by the Muslim community to ignore this event, to not protest this event. In fact, there were no protests at the time of the event that was taking place on Sunday. Now, the organization behind this event on Sunday was holding a cartoon contest in which the winner was awarded $10,000. Their aim was to draw contemporary artistic impressions of Prophet Mohammad. And that in itself was at the scene controversial by the Muslim community.
