I can't quite decide which element of this video is most galling. Is it that a CNN and MSNBC regular decided to bring a camera crew along to capture her criminal act for posterity? Or could it be that this one-time Reuters "journalist" clearly has absolutely no concept of what "freedom of speech" actually means? Perhaps it's the equation of support for Israel and opposition to violent jihad with "racism." Tough call. I am, however, confident about the best part of this clip: The moment when the obnoxious, unhinged, aggressively ignorant Leftist gets dragged away in handcuffs as passers-by laugh at her self-righteous conniption fit. Enjoy:
A few quick points:
(1) Bravo to the non-crazy person who stepped in to block Mona Eltahawy from competing her speech-stifling art project.
(2) Surprise -- Ms. Eltahawy enjoys comparing Islamist "right-wingers" to American conservatives on television, even though it appears that she sympathizes with the former group and despises the latter.
(3) "I need to know what you're arresting me for!" She looks genuinely puzzled, as if she has no clue that vandalism is against the law. Feigned ignorance for the purposes of maximizing drama and victimhood, or the real thing? Another tough call.
(4) On the "free speech" point, I'll let Allahpundit take it from here:
[Her reaction] is completely predictable, replete with ironic cries of “free speech” as she tries to literally blot out someone else’s message. She seems honestly shocked when the cops show up and cart her away for graffiti. This is “free speech” in the same way it’s “free speech” for you to put a piece of duct tape over someone’s mouth. One’s a property crime, the other’s battery, but the point in both cases is to silence a speaker with whom you disagree.
But should that pro-Israel poster really count as free speech? After all, we were just informed that "the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." The source of that pearl of wisdom went on to explain that "intolerance is itself a form of violence" -- so shouldn't the woman trying to prevent the graffiti be charged with battery? She seemed pretty darned intolerant of Ms. Pink's sacred right to vandalize a "racist" message. So shame on you, free speech defending lady. "Violence" is not the answer!
UPDATE - A separate but related video, also taken in New York City. Watch as a group of (understandably) incensed Iranian-American refugees descends upon a spokesman for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was apparently walking the streets of Manhattan with no security detail:
The "narrators" clearly aren't aware of the "victim's" identity as they express their bafflement over the spectacle. Hopefully someone has cleared things up by informing them that he's a paid mouthpiece for a Holocaust-denying, anti-Semetic, anti-American cretin who stole an election and slaughtered his own people while threatening Israel with genocidal, eliminationist rhetoric and pursuing an illegal nuclear weapons program.