UPDATE 11:28 AM Pacific: Sergio Quintana just tweeted this to me: “A mistake was made introducing my story last night at 11pm. We used a picture of Richard Spencer instead of Robert Spencer. It was unintentional but it doesn’t excuse the error. We’re running a correction and apology within our newscasts, and I’m apologizing here.”
I responded: “After you asked me for a photo and I sent you one, and also sent you on request a link to my YouTube channel, containing hundreds of images of me, it is extremely hard to believe it was a ‘mistake,’ but thanks for correcting.”
————
“Reporters,” they call them, when in fact they are lazy and careless propagandists for the Leftist agenda. I don’t think this was deliberate, as they do have a photo that is really me in this video, but you never know with the establishment media — you’d have thought someone would have caught it. It may be an attempt to associate me with Richard Spencer’s white supremacism and anti-Semitism.
[UPDATE: NBC Bay Area, confirming that it is cravenly trying to associate me with Richard Spencer and didn’t just make a simple error, has removed the embed code for its video, which you can still see here, but has not removed the photo of Richard Spencer.]
Note also the photo they chose of me in that video: it’s from a video in which I am criticizing Pope Francis for his false statements about Islam. There are hundreds of photos of me out there on the Internet, and NBC Bay Area chose to use none of them, including one I sent to “journalist” Sergio Quintana at his request. Instead, they grabbed a screenshot from a video in which I am pictured in front of St. Peter’s Square. It’s not a particularly flattering shot of me, but again, there are plenty of unflattering photos of me out there if that’s all the wanted to do. Apparently they also wanted to convey the implication that I am some Roman Catholic zealot criticizing Islam only out of a determination to advance my own religion. In reality, I’m not even Roman Catholic.
Here is my full exchange with “journalist” Quintana:
1) Have you ever been invited to speak at Stanford prior to next week?
No.
2) Are you surprised to have your appearance on campus stir controversy among the student community?
No. Universities all over the country are no longer institutions of higher learning, but just indoctrination centers for the hard-Left, and ferociously intolerant of dissenting views.
3) Do you have any security concerns about your visit (given the recent events across the Bay in Berkeley)?
Of course, and I will be accompanied by security guards. Campus Leftists are becoming as violent as they are unable and unwilling to engage intellectually with those with whom they disagree.
4) Are there any key points you hope to share with the audience during your address?
Yes. The freedom of speech is an indispensable foundation of any free society. There is an ongoing effort to marginalize, demonize and silence anyone and everyone who speaks honestly about the motivating ideology behind the jihad threat. This demonization and forcible silencing of legitimate opinion based on clear evidence can have no positive result.
More comments interspersed below.
“Critic of Islam’s Visit to Stanford Sparks Controversy,” by Sergio Quintana, NBC Bay Area, November 8, 2017:
Controversy is brewing at Stanford University over an on-campus event featuring an author known for being a harsh critic of Islam.
Opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression is only controversial because enablers of jihad terror and Sharia oppression have made it so. Get the details in my new book Confessions of an Islamophobe; preorder your copy here now.
An appearance by Robert Spencer, scheduled for Nov. 14, has triggered a petition to rescind funding for his visit to the university.
Spencer is best known for his appearances on Fox News as a self-described expert on radical Islam.
There they go again. When did I ever describe myself as an “expert on radical Islam”? I challenge “journalist” Sergio Quintana to produce the quote. In reality, I have never described myself in such a way, and don’t even use the phrase “radical Islam.” The only time I ever see myself described as an “expert on radical Islam” is in hit pieces like this one, where they’re saying I’m not.
But students who are opposed to his appearance at Stanford question his credentials and say he poses a safety concern for the campus.
As for the “safety concern,” that’s arrant nonsense. I’ve never called for, approved of, or condoned any violence. No one has ever been hurt after I gave a speech, except me. I will be the one there with a security team. That shows who really has safety concerns, and who is playing the victim card in order to shut down discussion.
“By inviting someone like Spencer and calling it free speech, they’re basically saying that hate speech is OK, and it doesn’t really matter how the marginalized students feel,” student Fatima Ledha said.
I challenge Fatima Ledha to produce one example of me engaging in “hate speech.” Apparently Quintana didn’t ask her for an example, and she wouldn’t have been able to produce one anyway, because I do not do so. But the intrepid “journalist” let her smear go by unchallenged.
Ledha is with a coalition of Stanford students who met Wednesday night to figure out a response to Spencer’s visit. Some of their concerns include questions about his academic credentials.
“He’s coming under the guise of a scholar,” Ledha said. “He’s coming under the guise of someone who’s done a lot of work on this, and he actually doesn’t have any background or formal training on Islam.”
What she means is that I haven’t gone through the U.S. Middle East Studies academic establishment, which is wholly compromised and sold out. But I have actually done a lot of work on this, and challenge anyone to refute me on the facts. No one at Stanford has even attempted to do so.
“He brings nothing intellectually to this university,” student Joshua de Leon said. “Bring in somebody who’s conservative, please. Bring in someone who is a scholar, please. But not this man.”
Such fear that I be heard! What are they afraid of? Why doesn’t Joshua de Leon show up and prove what I am saying to be false. He probably won’t try, and in any case he cannot.
Spencer, who has written several books and runs a blog called “Jihad Watch,” said it will be his first Stanford visit, and after a series of violent clashes over free speech across the bay in Berkeley, he’ll be coming with plenty of security.
“The freedom of speech is an indispensable foundation of any free society,” Spencer said via an email interview. “There is an ongoing effort to marginalize, demonize and silence anyone and everyone who speaks honestly about the motivating ideology behind the Jihad threat.”
Spencer’s visit is sponsored by the Stanford College Republicans. The group did not wish to comment about the event.
Why should they bother, Sergio? You’d just smear and defame them as well as me.