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In this small "clarification" on page 2 of today's National Post, you will see a reference to "Naiyer Habib of British Columbia". This is the first reference in any newspaper to Mr Habib in relation to the Canadian Islamic Congress suits against Maclean's. So who is he? Well, he's one of the two "complainants" (or plaintiffs) in the suits. Mohamed Elmasry is the sole complainant in the federal case, and in the British Columbia trial, which begins next month, the only two complainants are Elmo and Mr Habib.

This isn't hard to find out. So why do the Canadian media - including tonight's edition of "The Agenda" (see below) - persist in booking the Sock Puppet Three instead of Mr Habib?

Who is Naiyer Habib? He's a cardiologist in Abbotsford and the BC board director for the Canadian Islamic Congress. He was the former head of cardiology for the Regina Health District in Saskatchewan until he quit suddenly in 2001. He was also the president of the Islamic Association of Saskatchewan and "Muslims for Peace and Justice", in which capacity he appeared on the CBC and released public statements. He made this comment in response to the recent edition of NPR's "On The Media" on this subject:

Why such inflammatory ongoing majority publication against Muslims and putting forward a defence to have freedom of speech.

Why such inflammatory ongoing? Who can say? Dr Habib has also commented on this case at The Guardian, so it seems odd that he's such a shrinking violet only in his own country. Still, the fact remains: He's the plaintiff in the BC trial beginning on June 2nd, and the Sock Puppets aren't. Why isn't Steve Paikin booking Naiyer Habib? You'd think the good doctor would relish the opportunity. After all, as he says here a propos Franklin Graham and other "toads in the well" (as he puts it):

They have no guts as I have commented in other media to face Scholars on Islam.

Well, I certainly have the "guts" to face Dr Habib. Unfortunately, no Canadian TV producers have the guts to book him.

UPDATE: It's on! It looks as if the producers of The Agenda have agreed to let me go head to heads with all three of the Sock Puppet Three. We indicated we'd rather debate the real plaintiffs, but interestingly in his most recent email the producer is now describing them not as "the complainants", but as "authors of  a paper enumerating  examples of "Islamophobia" in the pages of Maclean's." Which in terms of media accuracy is, I suppose, a modest improvement. See you on the air at 8pm Eastern.

One final note. As I understand it, the Socks have agreed to Round One: Me first; Round Two: All of us together; Round Three: The Sock Puppet Three alone. That still's upside down: They're the accusers, I'm the accused - and in civilized societies the accuser states his accusation and the accused responds. We'll see whether TVO's producers manage to straighten up and fly right (as the Gipper would say) between now and air time. Deborah Gyapong says:

Which gets me to the behind the scene machinations on Steve Paikin's The Agenda tonight on whether Mark Steyn will get a chance to debate the so-called Sock Puppets, the law students who originally went to Maclean's Magazine to demand equal space and control over the cover art and a donation to a charity of their choice.

I am reminded of the time Paikin practically hauled Ezra Levant across the carpet for republishing the Danish cartoons. I believe Paikin has already had the Sock Puppets on, has he not? Has Mark Steyn ever been on his program? Why does he feel the need to give them a separate but equal forum on tonight's program. I think it is time for some producer to tell the Sock Puppets (and their puppet masters, the real complainants from the Canadian Islamic Congress) that they have to stop ducking behind the power of state censors and actually have a debate face to face with the man they are accusing.

When the Sock Puppets were on previously, did Paikin give them the same tough ride he gave Ezra? Or did he just give them a forum to whine and air their propaganda? I hope not.

I dunno. There are a lot of people who will tune into The Agenda tonight just to see Mark Steyn.
Those same people have heard so much of the Sock Puppets that they will turn off the set rather than listen to their array of misconstrued paraphrases and claims of victimhood again, especially if Paikin is not well-enough armed to challenge them about their ever-shifting versions of what happened in the editorial offices of Maclean's.I find it especiallyannoying that The Agenda plans to give the Sock Puppets the right of rebuttal. In other words, the way it is set up now, they get the last word, as if they are the accused and not the accusers. 

And here's my original post: 

As you can see from this precis, the current plan at The Agenda is to interview me and then have the Sock Puppet Three come on to do their usual schlocko summer-stock routine of pretending to be "the complainants". It's like "Little Human Rights Commission On The Prairie": terrible acting, lavishly subsidized, and running forever.

Anyway, it seemed a bit of a bore to me, so we've put in a request to let me go mano a mano with the Sock Puppets. Don't care how many there are: One, two, or all three. If Daniel Simard wants to come out of his hiding place, he's welcome to join in for a grand reunion of the original Sock Puppet Four. I'd much rather go mano a mano with the real complainant, Mohamed Elmasry, but his mano is stuck up the Sock Puppets so I guess it's unavailable.

We'll let you know whether Steve Paikin's gonna go for it. But, if they do, it'll be 8pm Eastern tomorrow night.

The National Post has been generally supportive of me and Maclean's and our struggles against the "human rights" enforcers. But I was heartened to see the editorial line has now spread to the lifestyle sections of the paper. Today Gina Mallet reviews a restaurant that specializes in authentic Alsace cuisine and remarks:

I'm hurrying now to give Alsace food another taste before the Taliban (Human Rights Commission) outlaws dissing anyone else's culture -- or criminal behaviour. Ayatollah Barbara Hall is even now persecuting Mark Steyn and Maclean's for exercising freedom of speech. Gotta be great for tourism. Toronto as Afghanistan!

Excellent. A restaurant reviewer who understands that free speech is a la carte and not determined by Barbara Hall's set menu... 

Faisal Joseph is the former Crown prosecutor who's now Elmo's vicar on earth, and he did most of the talking at yesterday's Canadian Islamic Congress press conference. Apparently, the actors he signed up to play the "complainants" - the Osgoode Hall students - don't have speaking parts. And Mr Joseph was reluctant to let anyone else get a word in, too. I enjoyed this:

When he raised his hand again to ask his fourth or fifth question, the lawyer got testy.

"Why are you asking so many questions?"

Brean deadpanned: "Because it's a, uh, press conference...?"  

Mr Joseph doesn't seem to be quite up to speed with the concept. Still, this was an ill-advised attempt at a smackdown:

"Will you let me answer, madam?"

"Why didn't you just answer when I asked you the first time?"

Seems a bit tetchy under all the bling. I thought the most interesting glimpse into King Faisal came in the National Post report:

He also hinted that the rebuttal has already been written, or at least sketched out, and that "one of the remedies in British Columbia may very well be that they [Maclean's] could be ordered by the tribunal to put it in."

I see. So this is how it works, is it? A "human rights" judge orders an ostensibly independent privately-owned magazine to print five pages of Islamist propaganda?

As I always say, I can't speak for Maclean's, but, were I the publisher, I'd say: Go ahead, make my day. You'll order us to print the turgid drivel ordered up by Mr Joseph, and we'll say no. What then? You get the RCMP to kick Maclean's doors down. At that point, even the Dominion's somnolent media might wake up to the kind of Canada Elmo and his enablers are constructing. I wonder if Jack Layton, apparently auditioning for chief eunuch of the new caliphate, even read the dossier of Maclean's systemic Islamophobia before giving Elmo the tongue bath.

Tomorrow I'll be in Ottawa for the "World Press Freedom" awards. I don't expect to win, but if this line doesn't alert the Canadian Association of Journalists to what's at stake, they deserve what's about to befall them:

They could be ordered by the tribunal to put it in.

In his sob-sister paean to the sock puppets, the litigious Warren Kinsella wrote:

My impression of these young people? They are citizens. They are young and idealistic. They are law-abiding people. They should be able to live free from defamation of their deeply-held beliefs, just like anybody else.

Hmm. Can you defame a "belief"? Well, Warren's the bigshot lawyer, not me. But yes, the sock puppets are citizens. So too is Mr Joseph. Yet someone who thinks it appropriate for a judge to order an editor to publish his lobby group's propaganda is a man who is not, in the fullest sense, a functioning citizen of a free pluralist democratic society. Which in today's Canada probably means he's a shoo-in for Chief Justice.