And They’re Off! The Race To Bait American Muslims

The only thing more pathetic than listening to the Republican candidates try to top each other on who’s more Christian is listening to them talk about Islam.

I didn’t watch the debate the other night because I’d rather drink a gallon of Drano than spend two seconds with these people on my television set.  I did hear some of the lowlights.  Take for example Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain (via CNN’s site):

The exchange on that issue opened with a question to former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who had said previously that he wouldn’t feel comfortable appointing a Muslim to his presidential Cabinet.

“I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims – those that are trying to kill us,” Cain said at Monday night’s debate. “And so when I said I wouldn’t be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones who are trying to kill us.”

Yes, genius, we all agree that you shouldn’t appoint people to your cabinet who are trying to kill us.  That includes Muslims and mad scientists.

The Newt was also on board with Cain:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly jumped in … siding more with Cain over the issue of Islam. Gingrich invoked Faisal Shahzad, the so-called Times Square bomber of 2010, who is a U.S. citizen from Pakistan.

“Now, I just want to go out on a limb here,” Gingrich said. “I’m in favor of saying to people, ‘If you’re not prepared to be loyal to the United States, you will not serve in my administration, period. ‘”

“We did this in dealing with the Nazis and we did this in dealing with the communists,” Gingrich continued. “And it was controversial both times, and both times we discovered after a while, there are some genuinely bad people who would like to infiltrate our country. And we have got to have the guts to stand up and say no.”

I’m scratching my head trying to remember when we had the big “Nazi appointment to the presidential cabinet” controversy.  As for the Commies, I do remember a history lesson about mass hysteria that there was one under every bed and that they were running the army and…gasp…writing screenplays.

I am not a big admirer of Islam (or fundamentalist Christianity or Orthodox Judaism for that matter).  But this Islam-baiting is an example of the worst in populist American politics.  Newt cites some anti-American Muslim who happens to be a U.S. citizen to prove that we have some vast Islamic infiltration of our government and no one makes a peep.  Where is the latter day Joseph Welch who will stand up and say, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”