Man cannot aspire if he looked down; if he rise, he must look up.

For those of you who are not familiar with the story, Graham's full comments in context are available at several sites. Here is an excerpt:

Because of the mix of Islamic theology that—rightly or wrongly—is interpreted to promote violence, added to an organizational structure that allows violent radicals to operate openly in Islam’s name with impunity, Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization. It pains me to say it. But the good news is it doesn’t have to stay this way, if the vast majority of Muslims who don’t support terror will step forward and re-claim their religion.

More of his comments can be found on Michelle Malkin's site in an article from July 29. The more you read, the less offensive it sounds. I just don't get why he was fired. These comments are not extremist, hateful, or inaccurate. Frankly, they are dead-on accurate - Muslims around the world have to decide between extremists terrorists who act in the name of Islam, and the peaceful, democratic, non-violent version of Islam that claims to be the "real" religion of Mohammed. Muslims who sit back quietly and don't comment are giving credence to those who present Islam as a faith of violence and terror - they can't let that continue. As Graham says,

That’s the real tragedy here. The people who most need free speech and open dialogue on the issues facing Islam today are America's moderate Muslims. These are people of good will who have the difficult job ahead of reforming and rescuing their religion. They need all the help they can get.

But of course this was not about accuracy, it's about political pressure. CAIR applied pressure and had Graham suspended a few days after his comments. I don't know where CAIR got that kind of juice, but they then applied pressure to have him fired if he would not apologize for his comments. According to Graham's website, he was fired

for refusing to retract those statements in a management-mandated, on-air apology. ABC Radio further demanded that I agree to perform what they described as “additional outreach efforts” to those people or groups who felt offended.

Hrm. I find the firing offensive. I find CAIR offensive. They have advocated suicide bombings, for goodness sake. They refuse to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah. They had to think about it for three months before deciding to condemn 9/11.
Rammage emailed me a news story today that contained the following gem:

CAIR was founded in 1994 by two former high-ranking officials with the Islamic Association for Palestine, a rabidly anti-Semitic organization known as Hamas' biggest political booster in the United States.

Nice. Do yourself a favor - if you didn't read up on CAIR when I gave you the link above, then click on it here. It's unbelievable that this is the organization ABC Disney caved in to.

Graham's site talks about free speech. Some of the articles supporting Graham make the mistake of invoking the First Amendment. Don't make that mistake - the US government did not take Graham off the air; some spineless management pinhead at ABC did. If you don't get the distinction, check LaShawn Barber's explanation, because it's what I would say if that wouldn't just make me redundant.

UPDATE: "Michael Graham Update - What You Can Do"