After neoconservative Washington Post “Right Turn” opinion blogger Jennifer Rubin drew criticism for jumping to blame Muslim extremists for the attacks on Norway (actually carried out by a right-wing anti-Muslim extremist), the vaunted newspaper’s ombudsman Patrick Pexton wrote that he chatted with Rubin and “found her forceful and unrepentant, yet not unreasonable.”

Pexton does offer some criticisms of Rubin, but starts his post by justifying her judgement and ends it by blaming liberal blogs who wrote about her rush to judgement for e-mail threats to Rubin. From the top, though, Pexton struck a sympathetic chord for Rubin:

When I received my Post e-mail alert about the bombing in Norway, my first thought was that it was al-Qaeda. [...]

So what explains the vociferous and voluminous amounts of e-mail I received last week denouncing Post opinion blogger Jennifer Rubin for making similar points online immediately after the bombing?

Just to clarify: Rubin did not blog immediately after the attacks. Her post went up just after 5 p.m. ET when the bombings occurred at about 9:30 a.m. ET and news broke about the youth camp attacks at about 12:30 p.m. ET. But there are more pressing problems with Pexton’s comparison: Because some people may have initially thought Islamic extremists attacked Norway does not justify a website of a major American newspaper reporting it that way. In today’s minute-by-minute news cycle, some speculation can be expected, but the level of certitude that Rubin and her so-called experts brought to her post went beyond just speculation.

Which brings up another issue: In what Pexton call’s Rubin’s “mea culpa post” at 8 p.m. on Saturday, she hardly issues a mea culpa at all, instead merely asserting that “[e]arly suspicion that the attacks might have been linked to a jihadist bombing plot in Oslo last year or the recent Norwegian prosecution of an Iraqi terrorist did not bear up.” Rather than take responsibility, Rubin took the opportunity as “a good reminder to all of us including myself that early reports are often wrong,” and then went on to draw the same conclusion in her original post (don’t cut defense spending) despite the utter debunking of her original premise.

In her “mea culpa post,” Rubin cherry picked her own reporting, making it seem as if she was skeptical that the Norway attack was the work of Islamic terrorists. “Right Turn quoted Thomas Joscelyn of the Weekly Standard for the proposition that we ‘[didn]’t know [emphasis added]‘ at the time if al-Qaeda was responsible,” she wrote. Yet in her original post, Rubin actually quoted Joscelyn saying we don’t know if al Qaeda was “directly responsible” and that “in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra.”

Being over-credulous with questionable sources has long plagued neoconservative writers (see Ahmed Chalabi), so that comes as little surprise. But Pexton doesn’t see fit to apply this critique to Rubin, who regularly quotes dyed-in-the-wool neoconservative ideologues on foreign policy and national security matters. (Despite his lack of credentials, Pexton too considers Joscelyn a “terrorism expert.”)

Instead, Pexton ends his column by slapping the wrists of liberal bloggers who called out Rubin’s rush to judgement for inciting a string of e-mails he called “ugly, obscene, vile and, worst, containing threats of physical harm.” Hateful e-mails and certainly threats of violence are inexcusable, but they should not dull questions about shoddy reporting through poorly-informed sources at one of the nation’s top newspapers.

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, CO.

Last week, journalist Eli Lake reported that, in order to glean a perspective on Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s prospective foreign policy, sources repeatedly told him he “should talk to Frank Gaffney.”

Gaffney told Lake that his work and that of the neoconservative think-tank he runs, the Center for Security Policy, were “a resource she has tapped.” Gaffney described Bachmann as a “friend” with whom he’d shared his Team B II report alleging that the Obama administration has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood (in fairness to the Obama administration, Gaffney accuses just about everyone he disagrees with — including the organizers of the conservative CPAC conference — of being part of the Islamist group).

In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress at the Western Conservative Conference in Denver, CO, Gaffney again described Bachmann as a friend and said he hadn’t been officially advising her since she declared her run for the GOP nomination. But he did say he could count on Bachmann to work at cleansing the country of the pernicious influence of the Muslim Brotherhood:

GAFFNEY: As worrying as the violent jihad is, there is at least as much to be concerned about with respect to the stealth jihad. And you need to understand who’s engaged in pursuing that and the techniques that they’re using and the progress that they’re making. [...]

THINKPROGRESS: Do you think [Bachmann] takes the threat seriously and understands the gravity?

GAFFNEY: I think she does, yeah. I think there are less candidates that seem less seized with it or at least acquainted with the problem. But I’m hoping that in the course of this campaign it will be something that is really a clarifying time [...]

THINKPROGRESS: She might be able to uproot some of this Brotherhood infiltration that we’ve seen?

GAFFNEY: If she were elected president she probably could. If she’s not and she’s an effective candidate she can. I think the point is to have as many other candidates become knowledgable and conversant and using their time on the campaign trail to educate people.

Watch the video:

You can almost hear Members of Congress now, with President Bachmann’s blessing, hauling Americans into hearings to ask: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood of the United States?”

So which other of Gaffney’s conspiracy theories can we expect to see a President Michele Bachmann pursue? His flirtation with birtherism? His contention that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan will impose Shariah law on the U.S.? Or that now-C.I.A. chief Gen. David Petraeus is submitting to Shariah?

The White House and leaders in Congress have reportedly reached a deal to raise the country’s debt limit. Both parties agreed to cut $1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years and an additional $1.2 trillion to be determined by a special committee with “triggers” instituted to split that $1.2 trillion equally between defense and domestic spending if a future deal isn’t reached.

Of course the pro-military industrial complex wing of the GOP is incensed and reliable war-hawk John Bolton is leading the charge. On Fox News this morning, he said military spending should actually be increased. “We have been under spending on defense,” he said. Bolton then embarrassed himself when the host asked him to explain why then, is military spending currently at the highest level since World War II. Bolton deflected the question, saying simply that it’s “complicated”:

HOST: I was struck by something that the Hill newspaper reported yesterday. They said that President Obama’s defense budget for 2012 is $671 billion, the highest since WWII.

BOLTON: They have mixed their numbers up in ways that are too complicated to explain in the next 15 seconds. Let me just say, if you look at the trajectory of budget expenditures in the past three years non-discretionary, discretionary non-defense is way up. Defense spending is down. So treating them as equivalent is comparing apples and oranges. Defense spending is not just another wasteful government program.

Watch it:

No, defense spending — which makes up 50 percent of discretionary spending — is not “down” (see this chart for the illustration) and no, the Hill doesn’t have its numbers mixed up. The numbers show that the Pentagon’s budget “has increased so much over the past decade that it has reached levels not seen since World War II.” CAP’s Larry Korb and Laura Conley note:

Total defense spending in real terms is now higher than at any time since the end of World War II, more than throughout the entire Cold War, and even 10 percent higher than the peak of the Reagan defense buildup. The baseline defense budget has been growing in real terms for 13 straight years—the longest-ever period of sustained real growth in U.S. defense spending.

Perhaps if Bolton had more time to explain those way “too complicated” numbers, he would’ve pointed to meaningless defense spending indicators cooked up by his war-hawk colleagues to hide the truth about out of control military spending.

When the accused Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik‘s so-called manifesto surfaced on the internet in the aftermath of the attacks, many commentators quickly took note of the citations to — and wholesale reproduction of pieces by — a group of American bloggers who fancy themselves “counter-Jihadists.” Though no mainstream media outlets alleged that any responsibility for the attack rested with Islamophobic bloggers like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, the clear influence they had on Breivik’s anti-Muslim ideology garnered coverage in outlets like the New York Times.

Now Geller and Spencer are leveraging all the attention to raise funds from their supporters. In the past week, both Geller and the David Horowitz Freedom Center — the group that houses Spencer’s Jihad Watch blog — sent out e-mail portraying themselves of victims of what Horowitz, in his letter, called attacks from the “international left.”

In his July 26 email, Horowitz wrote that Spencer was under scrutiny “[b]ecause some of Robert’s ideas happen to have been cited by the lunatic responsible for the carnage.” According to a ThinkProgress analysis of Breivik’s so-called manifesto, Spencer and his Jihad Watch blog were cited a combined 162 times in the 1,500-page document. (Horowitz was cited once.)

Horowitz goes on to offer up a pamphlet he and Spencer are writing — titled: “Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future” — and asks for donations, linking to a page to donate online:

In return I ask you to please give as generously as you can to help us keep Robert, myself and my team of writers here at FrontPage and Jihad Watch turning out the work that keeps the left and its Muslim extremist allies at bay and keeps us in their gun sights. [...]

Help us build up our legal defense fund against the coming witch hunt. [...]

Thank you for standing by us again as we take the battle once more to those who want to kill free speech as the first step of their plan to disarm America.

Then on July 29, Geller — who, combined with here blog Atlas Shrugs, was cited 12 times in Breivik’s screed — sent out a fundraising e-mail of her own, co-signed by her long-time ally Spencer:

Robert and I speak the truth day in and day out and stand on the front lines of freedom. […]

And now they want to shut us up!…

Your Contribution TODAY goes directly to the Protection of Free Speech and Speaking Out Against Islamic supremacism.

For donations of $250 or more, Geller and Spencer will send you a “free DVD copy of our acclaimed movie The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks!” or, for donations of $500 or more, you can get a personally signed copy of Geller’s book “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.”

Supporting their argument, Geller and Spencer cited the media’s reporting that Breivik considered himself a “Christian”: “mainstream media called this savage a CHRISTIAN, and tried to blame the murder of those innocent souls on ‘Radical Christianity!’ It is unbelievable!”

Breivik’s notion that “there are no important theological differences between jihadists and so-called ‘peaceful’ or ‘moderate’ Muslims” is lifted almost directly from the writings of Geller, Spencer and the “counter-jihadists.”

Popular hate blogger Pam Geller has received scrutiny in recent days as the public became aware that the right-wing terrorist in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, had praised her blog and thoroughly cited her writing in his political manifesto. After a number of blogs made the connection, as well as the New York Times, the Atlantic, and other major outlets, Geller became incensed and began lashing out at her critics.

In a post defending herself yesterday, Geller — who has called Obama “President Jihad” and claimed that Arab language classes are a plot to subvert the United States — reached a new low. Geller justifies Breivik’s attack on the Norwegian Labour Party summer youth camp because she says the camp is part of an anti-Israel “indoctrination training center.” She says the victims would have grown up to become “future leaders of the party responsible for flooding Norway with Muslims who refuse to assimilate, who commit major violence against Norwegian natives including violent gang rapes, with impunity, and who live on the dole.”

To get her point across, Geller posts a picture of the youth camp children Breivik targeted. The picture was taken on the Utøya island camp about 24 hours before Breivik killed over 30 children, so it is likely Geller is mocking many of the victims. Under the picture, Geller writes: “Note the faces which are more MIddle [sic] Eastern or mixed than pure Norwegian.” View a screen shot (click to enlarge) of Geller’s blog post below:

Could Geller’s outburst of smears be a distraction against mounting evidence that she might have communicated with Breivik in the past? A post from Geller in 2007 reprints a reader-submitted letter in which an anonymous Norwegian complains of Muslim immigration and boasts that he is “stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment.” In the comment section, Geller claims that she provided anonymity to the reader to protect him from being prosecuted. Although Geller recently deleted the ammunition line from her post, a cached version is available. As Glenn Greenwald notes, “If this were an attack by a Muslim group, and a Muslim had something like this on his/her website, the FBI and multiple other groups would be swarming.”

Geller, a fixture on Fox News and conservative gatherings, gained a large national following last year after fueling a campaign to smear a planned community center several blocks from the Ground Zero site as a “victory mosque.” Her influence extends beyond Breivik and the anti-Muslim blogosphere to the Republican Party, given the fact she has appeared with politicians like Newt Gingrich. And she is not the only leading conservative to rationalize Breivik’s beliefs and actions. Pat Buchanan wrote a column recently arguing that “Breivik may be right.” On his radio show, Glenn Beck said the youth camp Breivik targeted, which could be compared to the College Democrats or other mainstream political organizations, reminded him of “Hitler Youth.”