Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Dick Morris may have spent the last few months baselessly smearing Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf -- who is leading the Park51 initiative -- as a radical, but it turns out they all have something in common: They share News Corp.-owned HarperCollins as a book publisher.
Go to the HarperCollins home page today, and you'll find that Rauf's 2005 book “What's Right With Islam” is being promoted as the number one HarperCollins title under “Today's Most Popular Pages: Top Books.” Click through, and below the book description is “Critical Praise” for Rauf's book from The Christian Science Monitor. The featured quote says the book is “An invigorating glimpse into the heart and mind of a wise Muslim seeking the higher ground.”
HarperCollins has also published numerous books by News Corp.-owned Fox News personalities, including three books each for Hannity, O'Reilly and Morris.
Previously, we've noted that Fox News personalities have fearmongered over reports that organizers of Park51 have not ruled out accepting donations from Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, to finance the project -- even though News Corp.'s second-biggest shareholder is from Saudi Arabia. Conservatives' repeated hypocrisy on the topic prompted Comedy Central's Jon Stewart to sarcastically comment several weeks ago: “Is Fox News a terrorist command center?”