Excerpt: "Newt Gingrich applauded the central tenets of McCarthyism to justify his support for Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) baseless campaign to root out alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government."
Newt Gingrich, 09/22/08. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Gingrich Glorifies McCarthyism to Defend Bachmann's Anti-Muslim Witch Hunt
10 August 12
oday on CNN, Newt Gingrich applauded the central tenets of McCarthyism to justify his support for Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) baseless campaign to root out alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government.
Host Wolf Blitzer singled out Bachmann target Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, telling Gingrich that it's "ridiculous" to include her and that the whole thing reeks of McCarthyism. But the former House Speaker - and Mitt Romney supporter - wouldn't back down, praising McCarthyism for rooting out communists and defending Abedin's inclusion in Bachmann's witch hunt. "This State Department has been amazingly pro-Muslim Brotherhood," he said, "American citizens have the right to have the Congress ask the question." Watch the clip:
Bachmann has been widely criticized for her anti-Muslim campaign, including by some top Republicans, particularly for singling out Abedin. But the Minnesota congresswoman has yet to offer substantial proof of any Muslim Brotherhood plot. In fact, actual members of the Islamist group have recently lamented that they can't even take over the Egyptian government.
Clinton recently praised the Republicans who spoke out against Bachmann and today, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan denounced the campaign as well. "I have no idea of what it is that they are making reference to, and I'm not even going to try to divine what it is that sometimes comes out of Congress," he said.
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Comments
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And, if your claim that "once Muslims gain a majority they install Sharia law" is correct than how do you explain or reconcile this with the fact that the largest Muslim nation on the planet, Indonesia, is governed not by Sharia but by a civil code?
And, if your statement that "either become a Muslim, leave, or they kill you" is correct than how do you explain the 20-25,000 Persian Jews that remained in Iran after the revolution in 1979 and are still there very much alive and still very much jews (i.e., they were not forced to convert).
This of course does not even get into the historical reality which is that for hundreds of years during the middle at a time when jews were being expelled from (Christian) Spain or put into ghettos in other parts of europe (the first being in Venice and which continues to this day to be a Jewish community albeit it no longer a ghetto) that, in general, jews were treated far better in Muslim/Islamic countries than they were in Christian ones?
Even though the Israelis wish to decimate Iran, Iran has never harmed the Jews. Indeed, they have only helped them.
Under King Cirus the Great (Of ancient Persia and modern day Iran), the Jews were returned to their homeland thus ending the babylonian diaspora.
Persians have never been shown to be anti-semetic, but Israelis can be seen as anti-persian (and maybe anti everybody else)
And, isn't Turkey a majority Muslim nation? Are they governed by Sharia? No. So, it is one thing to be totally critical of religious fundamentalists (of any stripe....we need to be consistant in our critiques) but it is simply wrong to brand an entire people or religion as "bad" just as it would be absurd to say that all Israeli Jews supoort the policies of the Israeli government or that all christians supported slavery (John Brown, amongst others, would beg to differ)
You paint with such a broad black and white brush. Do you truly believe that all people of any faith believe and act the same way?
So would the likes of Blechmann and Nit -maybe even Twit-Robot treat the rest of us if they had their homophobic, Theocratic and nepotistic-nati onalist ways.
I have lived in several Muslim countries and felt safer than in (say) Texas or any Southern state.
As usual, you are taking the extreme oddball nations -and don't forget "Our bad guys" like Saudi Arabia, America's medievalist ally OR the push for putting to death all homosexuals in Uganda actually instigated by the "C" Street crowd of evangelical fanatics in YOUR government, and their supporters.
Turn yer eves homeward before you look outward and open them up a bit too!
How do you accoubnt for he fact that sizable Jewish cmmunities remain in places like, for instance, Iran?
And let's be clear about one thing: if our own Christian fundamentalists (who increasingly crack the whip in the Republican Party) ever got control of our government, they would install an "all encompassing dictatorial form of control" right here and insist that this was what the Framers of our Constitution intended all along.
What ever happened to the idea of defending to the death the right of those with whom we disagree to express their views?
(Old joke: why do spies never have Christmas parties? Because nobody will drink the punch.)
newt definition
n.
a stupid person; a dull and uninteresting person. : Don't act like such a newt.
What else needs be said????
Those of you who do not know who Patty Wetterling is, please take a few minutes and look her up. You could not ask for a finer human being, someone who has more character and integrity than the likes of Michele Bachmann can imagine.
The problem is not so much what Bachmann is selling as in the fact that voters in her district are buying it. If that stops, she will fade into the obscurity she deserves.
Those who regard "Muslim" as synonymous with tyranny and terrorism would do well to examine the ideas espoused by "Christian Patriots" in the United States. Would you like to have them in charge? Do they represent in any way the mainstream of Christianity or patriotism? Of course not.
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