Much thanks to Eli Clifton for drawing attention to Thomas Friedman’s Tuesday column in the New York Times where he says the Muslim world needs to undergo a bloody, traumatic civil war on a par with the American Civil War in order to defeat extremism. Thanks Tom.

What’s worse, the expert who is his main source of information for the column is none other than Evan Kohlmann, a “terrorism expert” every bit as stupid and ignorant and willfully misleading as Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer.

How stupid is Kohlmann? He was finally banned from testifying in a terrorism trial in 2008, but Clifton draws attention to a Spinwatch article wherein this wonderful courtroom performance on Kohlmann’s part is recounted from earlier in his career:

There have been numerous attempts to [ban Kohlmann from testifying in terrorism trials] in the past four years, which until now have been unsuccessful.

In one such case Kohlmann was put forward as an expert on the Bangladeshi Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. Under cross examination it transpired that he had never written any papers on the party, nor been interviewed about the group. He had never been to Bangladesh, could not name the country’s Prime Minister nor the name of the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami. Neither could he name a single political party in the country.

When he was asked if he had heard of the Bangladeshi National Party – which led the political coalition joined by Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh at that time – he said it sounded “vaguely familiar”. Incredibly Kohlmann was still permitted as an expert witness.

Wow.

This is the source for the columnist who was ‘voted by a bipartisan group of nearly 250 Washington “insiders” as the most influential media figure in shaping their own opinions and worldviews.’