I should be offended. You see, I wasn’t invited to speak at CPAC this year — not even on a panel. Clearly, I’m being snubbed. Shut down, even. By. The. Man.
This is a violation of my right to life, liberty — and a speech at CPAC.
I hope everyone gets up in arms about this. I hope to see columns such as “CPAC turns away Matt Lewis” popping up on blogs. Clearly, this is an outrage.
I’m being absurd to illustrate absurdity, of course. I couldn’t care less that I wasn’t “invited” this year — and neither should anyone else.
We have endured so much handwringing over CPAC’s recent decisions (“what to leave in; what to leave out”) that I am reluctant to even bring up the latest “snubbing” of Pamela Geller. But here goes.
Geller’s defenders (and the list includes some pretty prominent conservative names) think she is being excluded because she has accused some board members of the organization that hosts CPAC of being tight with Islamic jihadists.
I accuse people of being friendly with terrorists all the time. This is no big deal.
But there are other concerns. In this video, Fox Business describes her as “a leader in the birther movement for years.” So imagine the mainstream media headlines if Geller were to speak: “CPAC bans gay group; ok’s ‘birther’ speaker.”
What are the odds that a good old fashioned birther speech might overshadow the conference? I mean, I’m not sure why CPAC wouldn’t want to devote an entire day to discussing this.
Their loss, I guess.