RUTHFULLY YOURS

They don’t make ‘em like Rory Leishman anymore. He’s one of those old fashioned newsmen you only see in black and white movies these days.

As a rare non-lefty Canadian journalist, he’s fought all the good fights, particularly against activist judges. Leishman was also battling our censorious, PC-mad “Human Rights” Commissions long before the rest of us took up the cause.

This week, Rory resigned as a long-time columnist for the London (Ontario) Free Press.

He’d submitted a column to run on (ironically) September 11, detailing the connection between the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) and the Muslim Brotherhood. The LFP said they’d only run the column if Leishman removed references to two local imams. He refused, the paper spiked the column, and Leishman resigned on principle.

You can read the spiked column, plus Rory’s supporting material about radical Muslims operating with relative impunity throughout Canada, and the correspondence between Leishman and his editor, at Rory’s blog. The entire post is well worth your time. Here’s an excerpt:

How could tens of thousands of Muslims living in Canada sympathize with Islamist terrorists who were plotting the greatest mass slaughter of civilians in Canadian history?

Part of the answer can be found in some mainstream Muslim publications in Canada. For example, in July, Al Bilad, a monthly newspaper published in Arabic and English in London, Ontario, featured a poem that glorifies an Islamist homicide bomber who pleads to her mother:

“Yumma, tell my son that I did not abandon him, never!
“I did it for his freedom and our peoples (sic) right to be able to live free, forever!
“Yumma, tell my husband that he will always be my all,
“I know he understands and he knows why I took that call.”

Following the publication of this ode to terrorism in Al Bilad, all Canadians alert to the peril of home-grown radicalization should surely boycott the newspaper. Yet the current issue includes advertisements for Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic [socialist] Party; Irene Mathyssen, NDP MP for London–Fanshawe; Khalil Ramal, Liberal MPP for London-Fanshawe; Jim Chahbar, Conservative candidate for London–Fanshawe; and Ed Holder, Conservative MP for London-West.

Reaction to Rory’s resignation was swift. I received lots of emails and even a few phone calls from readers who’d been enjoying Leishman’s columns in the paper since literally the previous century.

Mark Steyn interrupted his hiatus to comment on his site’s front page:

Among other recent developments, Rory Leishman has quit The London Free Press over its decision to quash his column on the left’s collusion with pro-terror Islam. We have had cause to write about this torpidly conformist newspaper before. (See also here and here.)

Leishman emailed supporters to explain his decision, after his former editor, Joe Ruscitti, disclosed Rory’s resignation in his own weekly column. In that email, Rory wrote in part:

…I think readers of my column might find the comments appended to Joe’s column particularly interesting. They include several kind comments, which I much appreciate, as well as some vitriolic abuse. One critic, Leila Paul — presumably the same Leila Paul who is running for London city council and was formerly employed as a news anchor for the CBC in Vancouver — has suggested that the Free Press would have been open to a libel suit if it had printed my disclosure that two prominent local imams, Sheik Jamal Taleb and Dr. Munir El-Kassem, had taken part in a recent lecture series at the London chapter of the Muslim Association of Canada, an Islamist organization dedicated to promoting the ideas of Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. (…)

I am not the least bothered by such vilification. It reminds me of the quip by the great Dr. Samuel Johnson: “Attack is the reaction: I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.”

I know I speak for many when I say I hope to see Rory Leishman’s byline in a more deserving outlet in the very near future.

As for his editor: I was frankly stunned when I read the post below at Joe Ruscitti’s this morning. I’m speechless, except to say that when newspaper bigwigs gather to wonder yet again why their subscribers and revenues are disappearing, they might want to take a look at this breathtaking squib penned by one of their own.

I print it below, in full, without further comment:

Chalk one up for Rory

I’d say it’s coming in about about 7:2 for Rory Leishman from the phone calls and emails I’ve been getting since my column appeared Saturday to explain why the decades-long relationship between The Free Press and the columnist is at an end.

(You can also read Leishman’s side of things on his blog.)

Even some of Muslim faith took the time to e-mail me that they were unhappy with what I wrote. Shows what I know.

Still, the answer is, ‘No, I’m not changing my mind, we’re not running it.’

And we’re not changing the newspaper’s name to The London Censored Press, as a handful of you have suggested.