When last seen in coverage at NewsBusters, Anjem Choudary was sparring with Sean Hannity while claiming that ISIS atrocities are a Western "falsehood" and that Islamic Sharia law will be implemented "in the whole world one day."
Before getting to his latest stunt on CNN's Reliable Sources program with host Brian Stelter, it's important to provide some context, simply because Choudary, described at Wikipedia as a "Muslim social and political activist," has already said that "if you had a sense of humor, maybe you would have laughed" at how he conducted the mic check before his interview.
Choudary's Wikipedia entry indicates that he "praised those responsible for the 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005 attacks." More specifically (still-active links added to replace Wikipedia's footnotes; bolds are mine throughout this post):
Choudary referred to the 11 September terrorists as "magnificent martyrs", and in 2003 he appeared to endorse terrorist attacks by British Muslims, saying that al-Muhajiroun would "encourage people to fulfil their Islamic duties and responsibilities". In 2004 he said that a terror attack on British soil was "a matter of time". He refused to condemn the 7 July 2005 London bombings, but later accused the Muslim Council of Britain (who had condemned both attacks) of "selling their souls to the devil".
So it is established truth that Choudary believes that those who carried out the 9-11 attacks were heroic and that he would not condemn the July 7, 2005 London bombings. In that context, readers can now seek to identify the "humor" in the following exchange near the end of the video below, starting at the 9:26 mark (HT Mediaite via Twitchy):
Here is the relevant portion of transcript, following almost 9-1/2 minutes of stall-ball, during which Choudary would not specifically condemn the killing of journalist James Foley:
BRIAN STELTER: You talk about wanting the truth to prevail, but here's what bothers me. When we were setting up for our interview here, the audio engineer asked you to do what every guest does, to count to 10, check their mic. And you started to do that, but then you said "9-11, 7-7, 3-11." Is this all some sort of a joke to do that?
ANJEM CHOUDARY: Well, you know if you had a sense of humor, maybe you would have laughed. It was just a sound check. You know you shouldn't take any of these things that seriously. Obviously, you know —
STELTER: A sense of humor? A sense of humor.
CHOUDARY: We were setting, we were setting up the sound check, and I said "1-2-3-4-5-9-11-7-7" making sure you could hear me. It's not a big issue, it's not a big deal. If you want to make it a big deal, by all means do so. But it makes you look much more shallow than me.
STELTER: I have nothing more to say. But thank you for joining me.
CHOUDARY: You're always welcome.
STELTER: What a world we live in.
The "3-11" reference is to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Based on Choudary's past, this mic check stunt clearly wasn't "humor." It was an obvious taunt by a punk who thought he was being cute designed to shake up his prospective interviewer and everyone else in the room. Good on Stelter for exposing it — and though his response at the end may come off as timid to some, it was effective in the sense of making it obvious who the shallow jerk in the interview really was.
Given that he has celebrated terror attacks murdering thousands, and that rumors of planned attacks on U.S. soil from across our southern border came out this weekend — all but ignored by the establishment press, of course — the arrogant smugness Choudary exhibited should be seen as quite unsettling by those who are clearly playing catch-up in trying to protect us.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
