For those of you who may not know her, Brigitte Gabriel is a Lebanese-American journalist and an opponent of radical Islam.  She grew up in Lebanon and experienced close calls with radical Islamists.  She learned what they are all about and she has made it her mission to inform the rest of us.  Apparently though, if you tell the truth about a small portion of the Islamic world that makes you an Islamophobe in the opinion of the New York Times.   I've heard Gabriel speak on several occasions and I can detect no hate in her towards average law-abiding Muslims.  But for telling the truth about the other Muslims, the radical terrorist types she is called a Muslim Hater by the New York Times.

 
This from Newsbusters.org:

In her weekly Q&A session for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, reporter Deborah Solomon conducted a strongly hostile interview with Brigitte Gabriel, Lebanese-American journalist and opponent of radical Islam, while the headline blurb referred to Gabriel as a "radical Islamophobe."

The blurb:

The best-selling author and radical Islamophobe talks about why moderate Muslims are irrelevant, the lessons we should have learned from Lebanon and dressing like a French woman.

Is the Times calling Gabriel radical because she has an irrational fear ("phobia" or "-phobe") of Islam in general, or is "radical Islamophobe" a too-cute way of saying Gabriel has an irrational fear of radical Islam? Either way, the incredibly suspicious, hostile tone of Solomon's questioning is clear.

Here are some of the questions Solomon poses to Gabriel:

• As a Lebanese-Christian immigrant who spent her girlhood amid the bloody devastation of the Lebanese civil war, you have lately emerged as one of the most vehement critics of radical Islam in this country.
• Are you concerned that your new book, "They Must Be Stopped," will feed animosity toward Muslims?
• What about all the moderate Muslims who represent our hope for the future? Why don't you write about them?
• Are you an agent of the U.S. government?
• Are you underwritten by the C.I.A.?

When Gabriel said no, Solomon followed up:

But I see that R. James Woolsey, a former director of the C.I.A., serves on the board of American Congress for Truth, your educational foundation.

The pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA argued:

Apparently in Deborah Solomon's world, one must be on the U.S. government payroll to want to sound the alarm about militant Muslim supremacists.

Thought I would document this in real time.  The ABC News with Charles Gibson gave a 6 minute 13 second segment to Sen. Obama covering his mideast trip as well as an interview with Gibson.  Sen. McCain was given 2 minutes 49 seconds for an interview with some no-name reporter. That comes to 2.2 as much time for Obama as for McCain. 

To give credit where it's due, Gibson did put Obama through a pretty hard-hitting interview insinuating that he had made a rookie mistake in his speech before AIPAC where he said Jerusalm must remain the undivided capital of Israel.  Gibson asked him if he didn't realize that would be highly offensive to much of the Arab world.  He knocked Obama off his balance a couple of times. 

The interview with McCain started off pretty hostile, then the reporter backed off a bit towards the end.  

7/24/08:   ABC covered Obama's speech in Germany for 5 minutes 30 seconds, and it devoted an entire 1 minute and 2 seconds to the McCain campaign.  For anyone who's counting, that's five times more exposure for Obama on this newscast. 

I should point out that a record of two or three newscasts does not make for a full picture of what ABC News is doing.  They may well devote most of next week to McCain for all I know.  But for now they're leaning heavily in favor of Obama.  Personally, if I ran a news organization I wouldn't let either candidate "steal" a whole week's worth of coverage without giving equal time each and every night to the other candidate.