WHY A LE PEN VICTORY WOULD BE TERRIBLE

Hugh Fitzgerald makes a very good case about why, if Jean-MarieDhimmi Le Pen were to win any kind of a victory in the French election, it would only worsen things, not only for France, but for the rest of Europe as well. As he says here:

Le Pen is a crude racist and anti-Semite. Furthermore, he has shown that his antisemitism remains steady while his attitude toward Arabs and Islam wavers. [...] Think, after all, the way CAIR and others characterize this and other websites, as belonging to some mad-dog right-wingers. The charge is absurd. But in the case of Le Pen, the charge would not be absurd. He will only do damage. He has only done damage to the cause of those who are intelligently alarmed about the presence and spread of Islam and Islamic supremacism in the lands of the Bilad al-kufr, and especially in France.

[...] He has been the greatest obstacle to sensible and forthright discussion of what Islam is all about in theory and practice, and why "integration" will not work, and why there is no time to waste in learning about Islam and undoing the folly of the corrupt or self-assured but stupid promoters of the Euro-Arab Dialogue and all that it is doing to rewrite European history and the relation of Islam to Europe as to the rest of the world.

I've got a point to add to all this: has Le Pen ever studied and explained to anyone what verses the Koran and Hadith contain? Has he ever made any genuinely logical argument about why Muslims go on a rampage? If not, then that should show that he's not serious about opposing what he claims to oppose, if he claims to oppose Islam. And that's exactly why he's undermining the ability to combat Islamofascism effectively: his one-dimensionally racist rants clearly embarrass a lot of people who are afraid of being labeled fascists right alongside him. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if his whole approach is exactly why the so-called law courts in France have enabled him to otherwise continue about his undeserved career without being disqualified, and why his freedom of speech has never met any true opposition. It could also explain why the press, such as the AFP, have paid lip service to him. It's clear that they want him in power too, if you ask me.

That said, I must note that some conservative sources in the US have to shoulder blame for paying him lip service too - Cal Thomas did this in early 2006, and while I won't mention the other one now, I will say that I once blew my stack when I discovered a prominent(?) blogger in Europe, one who didn't even live in France but who did attend a conference with Le Pen in the mid-80s, going so far as to sugarcoat this awful, wretched jerk. Some leftists ask questions like if conservative parents would send their children to fight in a war; seeing what the Euroblogger I speak of is doing makes me want to ask an even better question: would you approve of your children attending a conference led by someone who espoused racist slogans?

There was even a blogger who, while I don't know where he lived, I will say that I once asked on his own blog if people in France were aware of Le Pen's shedding of the mask, and he started making up apologies and excuses for Le Pen! I never read his blog on even a monthly basis again, though I did spot him linking to an article from Le Monde, moonbat newspaper that they are, that was promoting Le Pen and claiming that opposition to him was down, one more thing that showed that he was, as I became aware, on Le Pen's side. Ick.

Le Pen's alliance with Dieudonne, who appears to have quite a Muslim audience, is one of the ways in which he's been actively campaigning in the suburbs of France where Muslims dominate. I certainly hope that people in France who are rightfully concerned about the Muslim threat realize what Le Pen's been doing and will avoid voting for him. If it's a third-party candidate you're interested in, Phillipe de Villiers appears to be the best choice. If it's a big candidate, Sarkozy, whom I'll be writing about next, is the best choice there too.

As Fitzgerald says here:

The sooner Le Pen dies, the more likely it is that in France those who are aware of the problem, but have been holding back because they do not want to appear to endorse Le Pen. Le Pen (who, by the way, visited Saddam Hussein to offer his support, and has every conceivable anti-American and of course anti-Semitic -- that is to say anti-Israel -- view of the European left). One hopes that the handful of sensible leaders -- Sarkozy comes about as close as, at this point, we can hope for -– will step into the breach.

I think Hugh may have left something out by accident, that being that people in France aware of the problem but are afraid to be smeared as fascists because of the damage Le Pen's done, will have the courage to step forward. Yes, I hope so too.

Reliapundit adds: Le Pen is so bad he makes Chirac look good.