Tales from the Trail

from Political Theater:

Ron Paul says Michele Bachmann “hates Muslims”

Ron Paul was on The Tonight Show last night, where Jay Leno asked him to say a little something about the other Republican candidates for president. Mitt Romney, according to Paul, is "a nice guy." Newt Gingrich should "run for Speaker of the House again," and Jon Huntsman is "a good diplomat" and " a thoughtful person."

And Michele Bachmann? Well, "she doesn't like Muslims," Paul said. "She hates Muslims. She wants to go get 'em." Rick Santorum, too, has a preoccupation with "gay people and Muslims."

Here's the clip:

Then came social issues and ‘morality’…

The Tea Party’s November victories and the ensuing Republican drive for spending cuts are in large part the result of a political strategy that focuses tightly on fiscal and economic matters, while minimizing rhetoric on moral questions and social topics. But for how much longer can Republicans keep a lid on the culture war?

The 2012 presidential race, though lacking in declared GOP candidates, may be about to pry open a Pandora’s box bearing the name of social issues that have long divided Republican and independent ranks. And such an occurrence could work against the interests of fiscal conservatives, just as the GOP girds itself for a showdown with Democrats over spending cuts and the debt ceiling later this spring.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, one of those Republicans who are running for president without actually running for president, tells NBC’s Today show that social conservatism is what built America and made it strong.

And if a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows 65 percent of GOP primary voters preferring candidates who focus more on the economy and the deficit, and less on social issues?   ”I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he replies.

Even the battle of the budget shows signs of becoming a Republican morality fight.

Here’s Santorum speaking to social conservatives in Iowa: “…if what we’re doing to the next generation of America, this entitlement attitude, if that is not a moral issue, I don’t know what is…”

And Newt Gingrich: “…balancing the budget is an essentially moral, not economic question…”

The First Draft: US media’s Fort Hood coverage turns to militancy question

First came questions about whether anyone missed emotional signals that suspected Fort Hood shooter, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was close to cracking. Now U.S. media say Congress wants to know if he was also veering toward Islamist militancy.

A preliminary review of Hasan’s computer has revealed no evidence of any connection to terror groups or conspirators, according to a report by CBS News.

But lawmakers have asked the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to preserve documents on Hasan. That’s according to ABC News, which says the spooks believe he may have been trying to contact U.S.-born imam Anwar al Awlaki, who is based in Yemen and supports holy war against the West.

It’s not clear whether the U.S. military knew one of its officers was under intelligence surveillance, ABC said.

U.S. law enforcement and military investigators are also looking into associations between Hasan and the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, in early 2001, about the same time Awlaki and two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were there, the Los Angeles Times reported.  The mosque is one of the biggest in the United States and thousands of people go there for prayer services and other events.

Witnesses at Fort Hood told investigators that Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar” — Arabic for “God is Greatest”  — before killing 13 people and wounding another 30 last week. The 39-year-old psychiatrist was shot four times by police and remains hospitalized.

It is unclear what motivated Hasan and the Army’s chief of staff, General George Casey, is afraid the shooting spree could cause a backlash against Muslims in the military.

from FaithWorld:

Almost two million vanish from Obama’s estimate of U.S. Muslims

Tom Heneghan

Jun 22, 2009 07:07 EDT

Almost two million people have inexplicably disappeared from the estimates of the U.S. Muslim population that President Barack Obama has given recently. In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4, he spoke about "nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today." On Sunday, the Karachi daily Dawn published an interview with him where he said "we have five million Muslims."

There was no explanation for the change, but his reason for citing the figure seemed to be the same. Shortly before his Cairo speech, Obama told the French television channel Canal Plus that "one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." He cited no figure there but mentioned seven million in Cairo three days later.

Many blogs, FaithWorld included, questioned that figure and noted that estimates of the U.S. Muslim population range from 1.8 to 7-8 million. The U.S. Census Bureau cannot ask about religion on a mandatory basis but refers on its website to a Pew Forum study pegging Muslims at 0.6% of the population. The CIA World Factbook uses the same percentage figure. It translates into about 1.8 million.

Speaking to Dawn, Obama lowered his estimate but made his original point again. He said: "We have Muslim Americans who are doing extraordinary things. In fact, their educational attainment and income is generally above the average here in the United States. We have Muslim members of Congress. And, in fact, we have 5 million Muslims, which would make us larger than many other countries that consider themselves Muslim countries."

The downsizing puts the U.S. even lower on the this Wikipedia list of countries according to the size of their Muslim population, from 32nd place (after Kazakhstan and before the current #32 Tajikistan) to 38th (between Chad and Turkmenistan).

In the interview, Obama also spoke a bit about his visit to Pakistan as a student in 1981 that caused some confusion and speculation in the end phase of the 2008 campaign. Dawn's Washington correspondent Anwar Iqbal asked Obama if he planned to visit Pakistan soon and the president responded:

American Muslims quick to congratulate Obama

WASHINGTON – The largest U.S. Islamic civil rights group was among the first to congratulate President-Elect Democrat Barack Obama, a man who some opponents tried to portray as a Muslim because of the childhood years he spent in Indonesia.

“President-elect Obama’s victory sends the unmistakable message that America is a nation that offers equal opportunity to people of all backgrounds,” the Council on American Islamic Relations said in a statement just minutes after Obama’s victory speech in Chicago.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the group, said they hoped to offer the Obama administration some support and advice.

“We look forward to having the opportunity to work with the Obama administration in protecting the civil rights of all Americans, projecting an accurate image of America in the Muslim world and playing a positive role in securing our nation,” Awad said.

Obama, who will be the first black U.S. president and whose middle name is Hussein, is a Christian. But throughout the campaign, false rumors circulated on the Internet that he was Muslim and therefore not a suitable candidate for the White House.

Son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, Obama spent part of his childhood in largely Muslim Indonesia.

More than 20 million copies of a film called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” were included as advertising supplements in newspapers across the country, many in battleground states.