Friday, July 01, 2011

The EDL: Speaking of Reputations...False Charges Do Not Reflect Well on Those Who Make Them

And who has made false charges?  Apparently, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, whose statements this week about the English Defence League heavily damaged the latter's reputation.

A group of anti-jihad bloggers have written an open letter to Pamela Geller asking her to apologize and retract her statements about the English Defence League.  A copy of that letter (I am one of the signers) is included in the prior post below.

The question is, will the very proud Pamela Geller admit she made a mistake and retract?  If not, there may be a permanent split between Geller & Spencer and the rest of the anti-jihadi blogosphere.

Geller seems to sometimes be careless, if not irresponsible, with the reputations of others fighting the same cause.  A few months ago she denounced an anti-mosque rally in New York, after liberals claimed it was "racist."  Several speakers at that rally have also spoken at Geller's rallies, and the racism charge was shown (once again) to be bunk.

I am surprised that Geller accepted so readily the claims of the loose cannon Roberta Moore, that the EDL had become infiltrated by neo-fascists.  A small amount of internet research would have quickly revealed to her (as it did to me) that Moore had been disclosed as a radical by the EDL, and that Moore's claims were highly suspect.

From here on in, I will take Geller with a grain of salt.  I am disappointed in her.  She could redeem herself with a public apology to the EDL, but I don't expect her to make one.  Humility is not her style.

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