"Apparently, the new Miss USA, Rima Fakih, is of Lebanese descent. For the anti-Muslim right, her winning is a sign of the apocalypse.
"Michelle Malkin is savvy enough to mostly cloak her freak-out behind horror over Fakih's politics (although she can't resist a dig at those 'identity politics' people), while other conservative bloggers just go ahead and call her a terrorist. Professional Islamophobe Daniel Pipes combs the internet for other instances in which Muslim women have won beauty contests, and concludes there's some kind of 'an odd form of affirmative action' going on. Because how could anyone choose a Muslim over a 'real American' in a beauty contest?
"I'm not really a fan of beauty contests, but the tone and substance of the fever swamp's reaction to an Arab-American winning a beauty contest is at least useful for pointing out how some people's political opinions aren't based so much in questions of policy as anti-Muslim animosity. The level of anger is just so plainly disproportionate to the matter at hand as to be self-implicating. These people aren't worried about terrorism -- they're offended by the idea of Muslims being integrated into the most mundane and banal aspects of American society."
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