There is much more to the Innocence of Muslims filmmaker than meets the eye. Unfortunately, it is the right which continues to come to the defense of Mark Basseley Youssef (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula). By seeing Nakoula as a political prop being used by the Obama administration, the right continues to both defend him and diminish his criminal background. As such, it continues to refuse to get to the truth about who / what was truly behind the making of the film.

As a consequence, the left has been able to paint Nakoula’s defenders as conspiracy theorists while many on the right have become so invested in defending Nakoula that they’ve become increasingly unwilling to dig deeper into who he is.

Tommy Christopher is going after the right – and he has a point.

Via MediaIte:

The runner-up for weird right-wing narrative of the day belongs to the strange notion that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man behind the film Innocence of Muslims, is some kind of political prisoner, being silenced and made an example of by the evil Obama administration. The film has been widely cited as the unjust provocation for attacks and protests on U.S. diplomatic installations throughout the Middle East, including, it seems, the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Now, conservatives are spinning the theory that he’s been imprisoned as a way to “muzzle” him until after the election.

Christopher goes on to cite this article from Kerry Picket at the Washington Times.

One of the problems with the position espoused by the likes of Picket is that it necessitates a ‘two wrongs make a right’ defense of Nakoula, who is someone with an extremely checkered past that involves partnering for years with a man named Eiad Salameh, a Muslim fundamentalist and terrorist financier. Yet, the right continues to avoid looking into this. Doing so would automatically make their defense of Nakoula even less tenable.

As infrequent as it may be, we partially agree with Christopher in this instance, though probably not for the same reasons. Like it or not, Nakoula’s defenders are actually constructing a firewall that prevents them from learning who Nakoula truly is. We believe that if this firewall would be brought down, Nakoula’s right-wing defenders would find a much more righteous position.

In fact, if the truth about Nakoula were to come out, perhaps Christopher might change his position as well.

If there is a conspiracy on the part of the Feds to keep Nakoula locked up, perhaps it has to do with his ties to Salameh. After all, the Smoking Gun reported that he was given a lighter sentence to help the Feds get Salameh (Walid’s first cousin). As Walid reported, the Canadian Peel Police had Salameh in custody for seven months but the Feds wouldn’t take him off their hands.

If you’re willing to open your mind about Nakoula instead of defending him as a victim of politics, click (in order) here, here, and here.

Again, where is Eiad?