Salon.com | From the White House to the jailhouse

In June 2001, it turns out, Al-Arian paid a visit to the Bush White House -- apparently as the specially invited guest of Bush's political guru, Rove, who was meeting with a Muslim-American group as part of a strategy to line up Islamic support.

That visit followed Al-Arian's dedicated campaigning for Bush in the 2000 election. Given Bush's much disputed, micron-thin margin of a few hundred votes in Florida, the professor's efforts to get out the Muslim vote for Bush could well have tipped the national election's scales (as Al-Arian himself has boasted, Newsweek reports).

The controversial Al-Arian arrest has right-wing pundits jumping for joy but is confusing and not a simple case of "good vs. evil."