Video: Imam Mahdi Bray

Imam Mahdi Bray seems to be “in the news” a bit these days as a result of the “Imams-on-a-Plane” incident [see my earlier post] and his interview with Michelle Malkin on the Laura Ingraham radio show.

Here’s a video I made earlier this year of a short talk I had with the Imam in front of the Israeli Embassy here in Washington DC. The “protest” in the pipe at the time was directed against the Israeli government. It was at the start of their incursion into Gaza as a response to the kidnapping of Cpl. Shalit. We chatted shortly after the formal “protest”, which was sponsored in part by our old pals and commie-poseurs at ANSWER. I really wish the Imam [who seems at least in person to be a decent enough bloke] wouldn’t hang out with those thugs.

I say that the Imam seems to be a “decent enough bloke” … and perhaps that’s simply because we’re both Virginia “homeboys” and share some sort of bizarre semi-Southern, Shenandoah Valley based commonality. There are those who disagree with my assessment. Please check this LINK at Jihad Watch for more information on the Imam. Perhaps I’m being naive … I don’t know. That’s why I’m posting the video. I report, you decide.

While I agree with almost nothing he says in the video, I must say that he comes across (to me) as sincere and is frankly a breath of fresh air when compared to most other people I meet at these events. I usually either have to deal with smug T-Shirt emblazoned “philosophers” and coffee-shop leftists, “Che”-wearing poseurs, ANSWER thugs, grim-faced radical Islamists and al-Qaida types or (worse) completely clueless middle-aged or teenage (there’s almost no in-between) suburban “concerned citizens” and Code Pinkers who would be better off learning the actual lessons of Vietnam and the 1960s as opposed to their own romanticized versions of those lessons. It can be quite draining.