Last August, the Center for American Progress put together a report, "Fear, Inc.," on what it labeled "the Islamophobia Network - "a patchwork of scholars, foundations, and opinion-makers that has propagated negative impressions of Islam and Muslims in the United States." One of the groups cited in the report is the Center for Security Policy which is described as one of the “key think tanks led by scholars who are primarily responsible for orchestrating the majority of anti-Islam messages polluting our national discourse today." It is funded by right wing donors and headed by the Islamophobic Frank Gaffney, a "misinformation expert," who has a veritable cottage industry that manufactures fear of creeping sharia. His group was in the forefront of opposition to the "Ground Zero Mosque" - an opposition for whom Fox News provided an Islamophobic "megaphone."  So was it merely a coincidence that Fox's Roger Ailes won their "Pen is Mightier than the Sword Award?"

From the Center for Security website - a photo of Ailes receiving his award from occasional Fox guest Frank Gaffney. Ailes is flanked by smiling Fox contributor Monica Crowley who is a former member of the Center's Board and who hates Islam (she says we're in a "holy war" against radical Islam) more than she hates President Obama.