On a trip to Cairo on behalf of the commission last month, Abou El Fadl met with the editor in chief of the government-controlled Egyptian weekly October. By his account, he was not well received. After a tense conversation with the editor, a photographer snapped his picture, and another man questioned him for a few minutes. "I should have asked him if this was an interview," Abou El Fadl concedes.

Shortly thereafter, what was presented as the transcript of an interview appeared in the magazine's pages. It was duly translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in Washington, which posted excerpts on its website. A small scandal erupted, as Abou El Fadl and the commission issued denunciations of October, claiming that the published text--highly critical of the Bush administration's Middle East policy and anxious about the dangers of a second Bush term--was composed of "distortions and fabrications."