Tis the season for TV experts and pundits of all varieties to come out of the woodwork and offer their purported knowledge of security and terrorism issues to fill round-the-clock airtime on news channels seemingly obsessed with continuous coverage of the tragedy of the day. One of those so-called experts – Fox News contributor Steven Emerson – has now been badly discredited for boldly claiming on the air that the British city of Birmingham had become a “totally Muslim” city.
Emerson’s comments came during an appearance with former district attorney and judge Jeanine Pirro, host of the Fox News show Justice with Judge Jeanine.
The pundit asserted that the British metropolis – the country’s second largest city with an estimated 20 percent Muslim population - had become converted into a city where “non-Muslims just simply don’t go.” He added: “Parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.”
Instead of refuting the false information, Pirro jumped onboard the argument full force, saying, “You know what it sounds like to me, Steve? It sounds like a caliphate within a particular country.”
When asked about Emerson’s comments, British Prime Minister David Cameron did not hold back in his criticism. “Frankly I choked on my porridge and thought it must be April’s Fools Day. This guy is clearly a complete idiot.”
The so-called terrorism expert - a frequent guest on a variety of Fox News shows - later apologized for his comments, which he admitted were “totally in error,” but did not disclose the source of the erroneous information he spewed on the air.
“My comments about Birmingham were totally in error. And I am issuing an apology and correction on my website immediately for having made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham,” he explained. “I do not intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had relied on other sources because I should have been much more careful.”
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