Uh-oh, I seem to be with the conservatives on this one

I have to agree the statement made by Bruce Bawer, author of While Europe Slept, who has been accused of racism and Islamophobia by the very person who was at the same time announcing Bawer's National Book Critics Circle award nomination (one Eliot Weinberger, a previous finalist), by the president of the Critics Circle board, and by others. Sorry for the convoluted sentence. As the NY Times reported:

For Mr. Bawer, the condemnations are more evidence of liberals’ one-sided blindness. “One of the most disgraceful developments of our time is that many Western authors and intellectuals who pride themselves on being liberals have effectively aligned themselves with an outrageously illiberal movement that rejects equal rights for women, that believes gays and Jews should be executed, that supports the coldblooded murder of one’s own children in the name of honor, etc., etc.,” he wrote on his own blog, www.brucebawer.com/blog.htm. In an e-mail message yesterday he said he did not have anything to add to his posts.

Mr. Bawer’s book jacket is covered with admiring blurbs from well-known conservatives, but he does not fit the typical red-state mold. An openly gay cultural critic from New York who has lived in Europe since 1998, Mr. Bawer has published books like “Stealing Jesus,” a harsh critique of Christian fundamentalism. “Some people think it’s terrific for writers to expose the offenses and perils of religious fundamentalism — just as long as it’s Christian fundamentalism,” he wrote on his blog.

Comments

[your editor]

yeah, but did you read the book? I did. It sucked big time. I can't believe a book of such negligible quality made the shortlist. racism isn't the problem of the critics. Just their sloppy standards. A crappy clip job. read Ian Buruma on this subject or Christopher Caldwell, of the Weekly Standard, who write well on this subject.