Another leftover bookmark from the morning post. It turns out the the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab hate politics isn't sitting too well with top Arab and/or Muslim Republicans. And Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports they're doing something about it -- complaining.
Are Ramadan and company outraged enough to do something more than ask kindly that their fellow Republicans stop hating them? Reading through the piece I'd have to answer no. Of course, being GOP, they wouldn't have a lot of experience in turning off the hate tap: if it's against gays, fine by them. If it's against Hispanics, that's cool. But if it's against Muslims, OUTRAGEOUS! Other than speaking to the press, there doesn't seem to be any strategy at all for getting their party to stop the bigotry.
So that ought to accomplish a lot... You'd think they'd know by now that there's no point in trying to shame the shameless. They're Republicans, after all, they know how this works. Pardon me while I refrain from feeling sorry for them.
Organized informally, the group includes officials who served in the Bush administration or have strong ties to GOP leadership. Their concerns are twofold: that there is something fundamentally unconstitutional about opposing the Islamic cultural center and that the tenor of conservatives risks alienating the Muslim and Arab communities (both domestic and abroad) for years to come.
"People like myself... who are hardcore Republicans and have been activists for years, with undoubted credentials on the Republican side, are really outraged by what is going on," said David Ramadan, a prominent Muslim-American conservative operative and a member of the Virginia delegation to the Republican National Convention. "We believe first and foremost in the Constitution. This is not a matter of this mosque or that mosque. This is not a New York mosque issue. It is a Constitutional issue.... This is absolutely unacceptable."
Are Ramadan and company outraged enough to do something more than ask kindly that their fellow Republicans stop hating them? Reading through the piece I'd have to answer no. Of course, being GOP, they wouldn't have a lot of experience in turning off the hate tap: if it's against gays, fine by them. If it's against Hispanics, that's cool. But if it's against Muslims, OUTRAGEOUS! Other than speaking to the press, there doesn't seem to be any strategy at all for getting their party to stop the bigotry.
So that ought to accomplish a lot... You'd think they'd know by now that there's no point in trying to shame the shameless. They're Republicans, after all, they know how this works. Pardon me while I refrain from feeling sorry for them.
