Well, if she gets to talk to Christian fundies a couple of times, I imagine (hopefully) she'd have lost all her support in North America. Geeze....

What's depressing is not that she's an idiot - but that the level of knowledge and basic common sense about the Middle East and Islam in DC is so low that someone like her gets to be a mini-celebrity.

A gavoon indeed!

I'll bet that stupid gavone and cafone apostate puta still believes her life is in danger from those big, bad Muslims.

Stick to bad puns, Matt.

"A gavoon indeed!"

Amen. Ahem.

"I'll bet that stupid gavone and cafone apostate puta still believes her life is in danger from those big, bad Muslims."

There probably are some big bad Muslims threatening her. I sincerely wish her safety from the likes of those who might call her an apostate puta, in an odd admixture of Spanish and English and Islamic law and lore. Doesn't mean she's bright or insightful, or deserves respect for being same.

Maybe I'm wrong, however, and she has more insight on matters of religion, interpretation, and civilization.

Perhaps someone can recommend a bio of the author Deuteronomy to help clear this up?

Oh, wait. I hear Exodus and Genesis are as busy as Maccabees cowriting a new book of the free thinkiers Bible along with Psalms as editor. Deuteronomy is upset and threatening to do his own version with Chronicles as ghost writer.

Aryaan Ali has indeed become a mini celebrity.Irshad Manji, on the other hand, has not generated as much publicity.That, despite the fact that she is probably easier to market(Lesbian Muslim, oh how liberating!).

I suspect Manji needs a Fatwa from dear old Khamenei to rocket to the top of the NY Times best seller list.

"here probably are some big bad Muslims threatening her. I sincerely wish her safety from the likes of those who might call her an apostate puta"

Just curious. Are you actually saying that Ayaan Hirsi Ali *isn't* being threatened by Muslim goons? Or are you admitting that she is, and you are mocking her for it? Or are you mocking them?

"Just curious. Are you actually saying that Ayaan Hirsi Ali *isn't* being threatened by Muslim goons? Or are you admitting that she is, and you are mocking her for it? Or are you mocking them?"

I doubt youre just curious. I smell innuendo and ambush a-brewin'. (Especially if some of my blog colleagues were unduly -- in my opinion they were unduly -- hostile in the past.)

"Are you actually saying that Ayaan Hirsi Ali *isn't* being threatened by Muslim goons?"

No, I said she probably has received death threats, and said I sincerely oppose. (I didn't say "Muslim goons" for reasons we'll get into shortly). Either way, it's in English. But I used an odd expression of an earlier commenter ("apostate puta"???) whose nature and purpose I found bizarre and confusing and was somewhat mocking of its bizarreness.

" Or are you admitting that she is,. . ."

What do you mean "admit"? Cut the innuendo/straw man. Is it some kind of concession to state the probable obvious? Do I "admit" that the sun is hot?

It's just not an argument in her favor as a anaylst/expert/thinker that she gets death threats, merely an unfortunate sad fact from which she should be protected. It may even show she is heroic, but it doesnt mean she isnt a gavoon.

" and you are mocking her for it? Or are you mocking them?"

I am mocking both the threateners and those who think that the fact she gets death threats makes her more deserving of being taken seriously for her expressed perspectives, which seems to be an assumption or implication of those who bring her up favorably. She's a gavoon and no less so because of death threats.

Idiots get death threats. Anna Nicole Smith, the Beatles (followed through 25%), OJ, Meir Kahane (followed through), Vanessa Redgrave. Doesn't necessarily make them worth listening to or even intelligent in their own professed spheres. (I think Meir Kahane though would probbly know that Deuteronomy didnt write a book of the Bible when commenting on religious thought and development.)

Death threats bad. Free speech good. I shouldn't have to explain that. Excuse me, "admit" that.

I also wouldn't use the phrase "Muslim goons" to describe her death threateners, however, for the same reason I wouldn't feel right describing JDL death threateners of Vanessa Redgrave as "Jewish goons".

I am sure one can use the phrase and plead a sort of literal technical accuracy, but it has the tone of a well-wisher-of-pogroms. And in these days, when it comes to fomenting an anti-Muslim pogrom, Ayaan is a prime cheerleader of same through the use of misleading and false generalizations, to which she adds more subtle pleas to the damsel-in-distress lynch mob incitement theme, and hence is worthy of disrespect.

Accuracy and honesty and perspective in such weighty group hatred issues are important, and she apparently couldnt manange such traits on a Dutch immigration form.

But all these are no justification for death threats and the death threats are no justification for taking her seriously or amount to any extra defense of her.

If such are brought up, as they are, to point out that there are violent Muslim extremists or hypersensitives, I will only filch the line of the great Basil Fawlty to his wife: "Mastermind contestant: Ayaan H Ali, special subject: the Bleedin' Obvious."

It's worthy of a full post though -- "Bogus Credibility via Death Threat." Perhaps coming soon. Be there, aloha.

Am I missing something here? What the hell is a gavoon?

I'm using the number two definition here which is how I always heard it used in conversation including the Americo-Sicilianized pronunciation.

"embarrassment to himself or others"

Of course, to me it has air of stupid though more commonly means obnoxious which is also applies. But I NEED a more broad-voweled sustained effect than "airhead." Alternative suggestions taken.

“Idiots get death threats. Anna Nicole Smith --“

So death threats received by a person like Anna Nicole Smith from a subset of those who were raised on something like the Playboy philosophy, is as significant as death threats received by a person like van Gogh from a subset of those who were raised on something like the Koran.

If this is true, then the subsets can be formed into a neat little equation and we can confidently treat both subsets as being of equal importance or, if you prefer, equal unimportance.

Thanks Matthew. That’s a weight off my mind. Now Sir Salman and all we lesser lights can all relax and stay happy.

Thank you Ahem, I had no idea that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gough, and Salman Rushdie were the same person. So Ali is really a cunning disguise so we'll think Van Gough is dead and we'll all forget about Rushdie (his recent books help that, too).
Really, sir, if you want to fight strawmen, go find a cornfield.

In fairness, in now-to-be-changed version, my attempting to ridicule those who over admire her because they think death threats enhance her credbility in a meaningful way, I might have seemed to mock her actual bravery in face of death threats. That was wrong. Though I tend to think the nature and number of those threats are far less than those faced by far braver and less ignorant or attention-seeking folks who have actually been killed in the front lines of war and terror and cultural change, still even an ignorant does-more-harm-than-good celebrity seeker deserves sincere respect for braving apparent threats, even despite the fact that teh reports of those threats do coincidentally enhance the public notoriety she actively and willingly chooses to seek.

Wow, Matthew. Most-backhanded-propsgiving EVAR. I salute you!
I think your underlying theme is that when a person receives death threats from one or more assholes for what the person is saying, that does not inherently increase the value of what the person is saying. In Ayaan Hirsi Ali's case, she's just as full of crap now as she always was.
Conversely, when assholes make death threats against shitheads for what the latter are saying, it does not make the threateners any less assholish.
There is only one proper effect, namely that people who continue to speak out in the face of death threats deserve some respect for their bravery regardless of how full of crap we may think they are.
There is some question about how much respect bravery itself merits. Nathan Bedford Forrest, for example, was an extremely brave man. But this is a separate topic.
Lastly, I think that Ms Ali is no more to be taken seriously than any of the many pissed off lapsed Catholics and trefe Jews I know who slag off the religion of their forefathers without knowing much about it. (I'm as trefe as any Jew and I do slag off the religion for certain things but I try at least to be fair about it. Also I don't get to present my semi-informed views to the National Press Club.) It's just that Islam is the current hot item, and furthermore many, many non-Muslims don't like it, so anyone from inside the religion who has media savvy and is willing to slag it off is going to get an entirely disproportionate amount of attention.