Audrey Hudson checks out CAIR's donors

Attn CAIR: AUDREY HUDSON IS IN UR TAX REPORTZ, COUNTIN YOR MEMBERZ

You may have seen that headline earlier Monday, but that link goes to Tuesday's full report in the Washington Times. Paid membership in CAIR has dropped ninety percent since 2001. There are just a few big donors who are footing most of their operating expenses. I'd like to know why; Hudson suggests CAIR's being named as a co-conspirator in a terror trial might have something to do with it. But has that received enough publicity to make a difference?

There's another explanation--that CAIR's not hardcore enough for many of them--but I hope that's not the case.

Can CAIR still claim to speak for American Muslims when they are abandoning it in droves? I suspect the media will continue to rely on CAIR spokesmen like Ibrahim Hooper, simply because they will reliably bash conservative national defense policies and accuse their opponents of "Islamophobia". It makes good TV. Besides, there isn't another identity-politics umbrella group that will speak up for American Muslims and still espouse CAIR's agenda. There are other pro-Muslim groups, but they are, let's put this delicately, more forthrightly anti-terrorist than CAIR. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser (who is quoted in Hudson's article) leads one of them.

I hope media bookers and reporters looking for reactions will begin looking to Jasser, about whom I've written:

...please don’t insult me by claiming I’m just mad there are Arabs on my TV. I want Arabs on my TV. I’d love to see more Jamal Miftahs, Wafa Sultans, M. Zuhdi Jassers getting their say. These men and women do more for American goodwill toward Arabs and Muslims than the all the Wahhabi propaganda ever made.

I think CAIR's confrontational, heavy-handed, lawsuit-happy tactics, shady connections, and victimized identity politics have, on balance, fostered suspicion and resentment against Muslims within mainstream America. Maybe American Muslims agree with that sentiment, and that's one reason they're fleeing CAIR.