Robert Spencer popularized the term “Stealth Jihad,” and some in the Conservative wing such as Newt Gingrich have ran with it and are using it all the time. As has been exposed on Loonwatch and other sites, “Stealth Jihad” is paranoid speak and just another anti-Muslim conspiracy theory.

Lisa Miller takes on this term in her recent article which no doubt will have Spencer, whose site is described as “a hyperventilating anti-terror blog,” in fits.

The Misinformants

By Lisa Miller

Here is the latest semantic assault from the party that brought you “Islamo-facism” (circa 2005) and “Axis of Evil” (2002). The term “stealth jihad” is suddenly voguish among politically ambitious right wingers who see President Obama’s approach to terrorism as insufficient. If it sounds like a phrase from a military-fantasy summer blockbuster, that’s on purpose: in its cartoonish bad-guy foreignness, “stealth jihad” attempts to make the terrorist threat broader and thus more nefarious than it already is. The only thing scarier than an invisible, homicidal, suicidal enemy with a taste for world domination is one who’s sneaking up on you. In the words of former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at a July speech at the American Enterprise Institute, “stealth jihad” is an effort “to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia.”

The term wasn’t Gingrich’s invention. It’s the title of a two-year-old book by Robert Spencer, whose hyperventilating antiterror blog, Jihad Watch, is cited and circulated widely on the far right. But the recent vicious debate over the proposed community center and mosque near Ground Zero gives Gingrich an excuse to use “stealth jihad” and its variants frequently—not just at the AEI but in an interview with this magazine. (In an essay on the conservative Web site Human Events, he referred instead to “creeping sharia.”) Gingrich’s like-minded peers have seized on the language, too. “Muslim Brotherhood operatives, like [Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the center’s founder and leader] are extremely skilled at obscuring … their true agenda,” said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, on FOX’s Glenn Beck show. “It’s part of the stealth jihad.”
‘A Little Intolerant, But Good Reason To Be’ Protesters for and against the building of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero talk about their reasons for supporting or opposing the project.

Words matter, and if you say them often enough and with enough authority, they start to sound true—even if they’re not. Abdul Rauf, for instance, has no affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and is an “operative” (another nefarious word) only in the sense that running a small, progressive interfaith nonprofit is an “operation.” As for his “stealth jihad,” it’s virtually impossible to imagine how such an event would—logistically—occur. Would the construction of an Islamic prayer site near Ground Zero inevitably lead American women to wake up one morning and find themselves veiled and confined to their homes? “The term is ever-so-slightly goofy,” says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley. The paranoia conveyed by “stealth jihad” brings to mind the anticommunist campaigns of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, Nunberg adds. Just as McCarthyites imagined a communist behind every lamppost, the word “stealth” conflates all Muslims with terrorists. In a stealth campaign you never know who your friends are.

Also, simply put, foreign words freak people out. “Jihad” and “Sharia” reinforce the sense among Americans that Muslims in general have an unfathomable world view. During World War II, formerly obscure words like “hara-kiri” and “kamikaze,” which suggested the “warlike ferocity” of the Japanese, became common parlance, Nunberg says. “There was this sense of being confronted with this hostile, alien culture.” The Japanese were “literally demonized,” he says.

Gingrich has already used the mosque debate to evoke many of America’s historic enemies, comparing Muslims indirectly with Nazis and communists and even the Japanese. “We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor,” he said on FOX recently.

But that is not true. Fourteen percent of Hawaiians call themselves ethnically Japanese, according to the U.S. Census, and dozens of Japanese temples stand near Pearl Harbor—as they have for decades. One of them, the Buddhist Aiea Hongwanji Mission, is less than half a mile away. “You can see Pearl Harbor from the roof, maybe. We’re really close,” says Wade Yamamoto, the temple’s treasurer. The temple allows people “to practice their religion from back home,” he says. Gingrich, a historian, might take a lesson here. After the attacks of Dec. 7, 1941, more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent—two thirds of them American citizens—were interned in camps in a shameful episode that later legislation called the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” Last week, a New York City cab driver was stabbed for answering the question “Are you a Muslim?” in the affirmative. Our enemies are dangerous. Let’s be clear about who they are.

With Johannah Cornblatt

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Sharron Angle calls for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and a "return" to Biblical Law.

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle has made some very interesting statements about what could happen if the ballot box fails:

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. In fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this, this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? And I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

Source: Washington Post

“The nation is arming. What are they arming for, if it isn’t that they are so distrustful of their government? They’re afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? That’s why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”

Speaking to Reno Gazette Journal on May 30, 2010:

“I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry. This is not for someone who’s in the military. This is not for law enforcement. This is for us. And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny. This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical…Well it’s to defend ourselves. And you know, I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.”

Source: Huffington Post

Just to remind our dear readers, the Second Amendment reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So, is this incitement to armed insurrection? Is this a call to violence if “we don’t win at the ballot box”? What are the “Second Amendment remedies”?

Sharron Angle’s “stealth jihad” campaign against the U.S. government is waged on behalf of the Christian not Islamic flag.  She doesn’t want to replace our secular and liberal form of government with Sharia law, but Biblical Law.  If you think of Sharia as stoning adulterers, guess which book that comes from?  It’s from none other than the Bible.  (Of course, it would be unfair to link stoning–found in the Bible–to Sharron Angle, since her interpretation of Biblical Law may not entail this, but this never stops Christian right-wingers from saying every Muslim who believes in Sharia advocates a return to stoning.)

Anyways, here’s more about Angle’s background:

Sharron Angle, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Nevada was, in the 1990s, a member of the Independent American Party, the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party.  The Constitution Party is not merely a political party that supports the Constitution, but rather a party that promotes a very specific interpretation of the Constitution: based on founder Howard Phillips’ Christian Reconstruction.

The Constitution Party’s platform advocates “returning” American law to its “foundations” in “Biblical Law.” The notion that the First Amendment’s religion clauses provide for a separation of church and state is rejected…They contend that the founders always understood the U.S. to be a Christian nation founded on biblical law.

source: ReligionDispatches.org

Can you imagine the reaction if she had been a Muslim? What if a Muslim candidate for public office – any public office, even if it is Chief Librarian (or the prestigious position of Miss America) – calls for “Second Amendment remedies”? What if a Muslim candidate for public office said, “If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”  What if Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison said that, or any of the “army of Muslim spy interns” supposedly trying to topple our government?  And what if these Muslims advocating violent overthrow believed in “returning” American law to Sharia-based law?  Do you think that such a Muslim would have a semblance of a political career left?

I will tell you the answer: people would be saying that such a Muslim candidate should be sent to jail for incitement to murder and terrorism; that Muslim candidate would be demonized to no end.  At minimum, he/she would be forced to resign, amid a fury of calls for his/her head.  And Spencer, Geller, and Co. would be screaming “Stealth Jihad!” “Taqiyya!” “Dhimmitude!” until the cows…no, I’m sorry, the pigs come home.

This incident highlights the fact that right wing extremism–of which extremist Christians comprise a large chunk of–remains a grave threat to this country just as radical Islam does.  Right-wing extremism is certainly more of a threat to our liberal way of life than the imaginary “stealth jihad” that loyal Muslim-American citizens are continually accused of–a fact that holds true even if it doesn’t conform to the narrative imagined by right wing Islamophobes.  We also wonder: why are Muslim-Americans always skeptically cross-examined by Christian right-wingers about their loyalty to this country, but meanwhile these same Christian right-wingers openly call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government?

Dan Fanelli is a Republican loon who is campaigning for the GOP congressional primary.  He supports racial profiling (which by the way has been scientifically proven to be ineffective), and is now running a campaign ad that is unbelievably racist.

In the ad, Fanelli stands between a middle-aged white man (perhaps the whitest man on earth) and a young darker-skinned man with a menacing growl.  “Does this look like a terrorist?” he asks, gesturing towards the white man.  Then, he points to the darker-skinned fellow, asking “Or this?”

Fanelli supports racial profiling at airports, arguing on Fox’s brain numbing and dumbing show Red Eye that “[racial] profiling is good.”  In that interview, Fanelli turns to his white host and says that a person who “looks like you or I” should not receive extra screening.

Here’s the racist ad in question:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umTITWQuXwY 300 250]

After he was ambushed by critics, Fanelli quickly began to backpedal and claimed that his ad’s message was not at all that darker skinned people are more likely to be terrorists.  He then claimed that his message was only that people from countries like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Syria “require a higher level of security.”

This is an unconvincing argument, since his ad explicitly conveyed the idea that people should be screened based on their outward appearances, not nationality. This was made crystal clear by the juxtaposition of the white man with the Arab guy.  Had he put a third generation Arab-American on one side and an Arab foreigner on the other, the ad would have made no sense.  Clearly, Fanelli was calling for us to discriminate based on ethnic facial features and skin tone.

Many third generation Arab-Americans look exactly like Arab foreigners who have never been to the U.S.  How would Fanelli’s question of “does this look like a terrorist, or this?” apply here?  Let’s be real: Fanelli’s ad was calling to discriminate based on ethnic appearance, not nationality or place of birth.

In his “defense,” however, Fanelli might not be racist towards all dark-skinned people, only Arabs.  This is indicated by Fanelli later clarifying that some Arabs are “light-skinned.”  So Fanelli might not be racist against blacks, but he certainly is racist against Arabs and any other “Moozlem-looking” races.  Funny how we Americans are so much more forgiving of racism against Arabs.

If such policies were instituted against anyone else other than Muslims, there would be public outrage.  What if the Iranians instituted a policy of racial profiling, whereby they would give Jews extra screening because they are more likely to be Mossad agents?  (Who knows, they might actually do that.)

What if police officers in Arizona were instructed to stop Hispanic-looking people to screen for illegal immigrants?  (Oh wait…damn it, what is this country turning into?)

Or what if police officers in American suburbia were instructed to stop blacks, because c’mon let’s put political correctness aside for a second and ask “does this look like a criminal, or this?”  Wouldn’t a young black man look more like a criminal than a good-looking white man?

Sorry, Mr. Fanelli, but this is the United States of America.  We don’t believe in judging people based on their outward appearances.  We believe all people are created equal, no matter what their race, religion, or creed is.  If you don’t like that, then leave.  You’re un-American.

In any case, the Arab actor in the video (anyone know who this pathetic “race traitor” is?) only looks like a terrorist (or an Ultimate Fighter) because of the way he is scowling.  Here’s a hint: if someone gives the evil bad guy facial expression like that, you might want to give him extra screening (or laxatives for his constipation) regardless of his race.

But seriously, if you saw that Arab guy on the street and thought to yourself “he looks like a terrorist,” then congratulations, you’re a 100% certified racist.

On a lighter and somewhat amusing note, Fanelli says:

Let’s face it, if the good looking rich guy without much hair was flying airplanes into the twin towers, I’d have no problem being pulled out of line at the airport.

Does he really think that he looks like a “good looking rich guy?”  And since when do “good looking” guys have “[not] much hair?”  Is he under the impression that chicks dig his shiny bald head?

Fanelli’s comment is almost identical to that made by Kathleen Parker, who said:

If a 5-foot-6-inch, 115-pound middle-aged woman of Northern European extraction with shoulder-length, tastefully highlighted hair and dark-brown eyes who speaks English with a slight Southern accent recently had hijacked an airplane and killed thousands of people, I’d gladly subject myself to extra scrutiny.

There is most definitely a racial supremacist undertone here, implying that white people are better looking.  The bottom line is: don’t screen people who look like us, but screen those people.  Real Americans are white-skinned and look like us: tall, blond hair, and blue eyes.  (For the record, the Arab actor in the video–race traitor though he is–is far better looking than Fanelli or the middle-aged zombie.)

Fanelli does not look like a terrorist…just a douchebag.

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., and Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz

TPM, which has been all over the story about the GOP pushing an anti-Muslim witch hunt based on a book by loons, David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry has reported that the lawmakers have still not contacted the Sergeant of Arms for an investigation into this “threat to our national security.” They also haven’t given a reason as to the delay.

GOP Lawmakers “Dawdle”

Four Republican lawmakers have not submitted a request to the House sergeant at arms to investigate a threat that one of the four described as a terrorist-linked group possibly “running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices.”

A spokesperson for the sergeant at arms told TPMmuckraker this morning that the office was aware of the charge by GOP members at a press conference Wednesday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations planted Muslim intern spies on the Hill for purposes of subversion. But, says spokesperson Kerri Hanley, the office hasn’t received a request for an investigation, and it wouldn’t launch any probe until such a request is made.

“We don’t have any information to form any kind of opinion to decide whether an investigation is warranted,” Hanley says.

The charges made by Reps. Paul Broun (R-GA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Sue Myrick (R-NC), and Trent Franks (R-AZ), are based on the new book Muslim Mafia, which is co-authored by a man who has labeled President Obama “Muslim.”

They demanded that the sergeant at arms investigate the possibility of a security breach by Muslim intern spies.

As Franks put it at the press conference five days ago:

“We live in a post-9/11 world where the coincidence of nuclear proliferation and Islamic terrorism pose a very dangerous combination and real threat to America’s national security. … . I take the charges levied against CAIR and laid out in this book very seriously because they affect our national security.”

Myrick’s office told TPMmuckraker Friday it would be submitting requests for investigations in the next few days, but did not explain the delay.

The offices of three of the four Republicans did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the national security risk of waiting to launch an investigation.

Sara Mueller, deputy press secretary for Shadegg, told us: “Unfortunately, the congressman can’t comment on that at this time. “

Meanwhile, the (supposed) cabal of Muslim intern spies can continue to ply their trade in still more sinister (but as yet undefined) ways.

Sue Myrick wrote the foreward for Muslim Mafia

Dave Gaubatz, who we reported on previously while covering a story on Tawfiq Hamid has surfaced again. This time teaming up with Paul Sperry (another Islamophobe) to write a book, Muslim Mafia which claims to uncover the secret, nefarious plot by CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) to supposedly “Islamize America.” This conspiracy theory is related to the kooky Eurabia theory which we debunked, and is another clear manifestation of anti-Muslim Islamophobia.

This time a few far right-wing GOP lawmakers (Sue Myrick, John Shadegg, Paul Broun, and Trent Franks) have used the book to call for a McCarthyist inquisition into Muslims who worked as interns in the Capitol to find out  if they were “planted” by CAIR. They rely on a CAIR memo obtained by Gaubatz’s son who claimed to convert to Islam and then interned with CAIR. The memo doesn’t say anything extraordinary but rather lays out a pretty straightforward PR and advocacy agenda. The key portion that is ringing the Islamophobia bell is, “we will develop national initiatives such as a lobby day and placing Muslim interns in Congressional offices.” So what’s wrong with that you may ask, isn’t that what every advocacy group does in Washingtion DC? Well, the message from the GOP lawmakers seems to be it’s okay as long as you’re not Muslim.

This hysterical McCarthyist drama is being fed to these lawmakers by Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry. These two make Orly Taitz of the Birther movement look like a paragon of rationality and senility. Gaubatz claims to have uncovered WMD’s in Iraq, calls Obama our “Muslim leader,” a “crack head,” he was also a member of SANE which stands for Society of Americans for National Existence and is in fact a supremacist organization which has stated amongst other things that “blacks are predisposed to violence,” and that “adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US.”

Some lawmakers have already condemned this most recent disgusting, hysterical and kooky initiative from the GOP. John Conyers, Loretta Sanchez and Andre Carson have all condemned this Islamophobic attack on American Muslims. Hopefully many more, including the leaders of both parties will speak out.

This video from Rachel Maddow’s show breaks the issues down pretty clearly:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E271Es21vaM&feature=sub 300 250]

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com gives a very good analysis of exactly who and what is behind this “despicable” political event.

This might actually be the most despicable domestic political event of the year:

A group of House Republicans is calling for an investigation into whether a leading American Muslim advocacy group tried to “spy” on congressional offices by placing interns on key security committees.

Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina Republican, cited an internal January 2007 memo in which the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) discussed placing Muslim interns on Capitol Hill to “focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community.”

CAIR said it had a particular interest in influencing the judiciary, intelligence and homeland security committees. . . . Mrs. Myrick and Republican Reps. John Shadegg of Arizona, Paul Broun of Georgia and Trent Franks of Arizona called Wednesday for an investigation by the House sergeant-at-arms into whether CAIR was successful in planting congressional interns.

“If an organization that is connected to or supports terrorists is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related congressional offices, I think this needs to be made known,” Mr. Broun said.

CAIR is a non-profit organization of American citizens who are Muslim and their “mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.”  They stand accused of plotting to influence members of Congress and trying to help interns obtain positions in Congress in order to advance their political agenda.  That’s consistent with what virtually every political advocacy group in the nation does; it’s normally called activism and democracy.  But because, in this case, it’s a group of Muslims who are doing this, these House Republicans are depicting it as some sort of nefarious espionage plot against the U.S. that demands a criminal investigation.  The Fox News headline screams:

All that from an “internal memo” they uncovered which discusses how CAIR can help Muslim-Americans obtain internship positions with Congressional committees (click to enlarge):

“Muslim interns in Congressional offices” – frightening!  Look at this repulsive innuendo, from Rep. Franks:

While the Republicans said they did not know of specific legislation that CAIR had affected, Franks, a Judiciary Committee member, said he wouldn’t be surprised if it was trying to amend the Patriot Act.

“One of the target policies that they might be concerned about is the Patriot Act itself — those things that give us the greatest tools to be able to surveil those conversations outside of this country . . .  and I think organizations like CAIR would like to diminish that.”

Patriot Act reforms have long been advocated by what The New York Times called “an unlikely coalition of liberal civil-rights advocates, conservative libertarians, gun-rights supporters and medical privacy advocates.”  Several Senators — including the Democrats’ second-highest ranking member, Dick Durbin — just voted (unsuccessfully) to impose new limits on that law.  But when “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group” takes the same position, these crazed, blatantly bigoted House Republicans spit out McCarthyite smears trying to imply that they’re working from within to help Terrorists attack America.  It’s nothing less than an attempt to criminalize organized political activity by and on behalf of American Muslims.

Just to underscore how extremist the House GOP caucus is, this hysteria is all based on a new book entitled ”Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”  That’s the source which these House members are using.  In fact, one of the GOP House members, Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, wrote the foreword to the book.  One of the two authors of that book, Dave Gaubatz, maintains this website, where he’s hocking the book through Paypal.  Here’s his mission statement at the top of the page:

The donations will assist in exposing Islamic terrorist operations in America. The goal of the organizations: An Islamic Ummah (Nation) Worldwide, Under Islamic Sharia Law. These goals are widely distributed across America, yet ignored by most of our politicians and the Department of Homeland Security.

The entire site is filled with the most extreme and repugnant anti-Muslim paranoia imaginable, claiming that “CAIR represents the ideology of terrorist groups”; warning that “CAIR places ‘insiders’ into Congressional offices in order to push the CAIR and Islamic terrorist agendas“; displaying a photograph of Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American elected to Congress, with this caption:  ”One of your leading elected officials (supporter of CAIR) with researcher Chris Gaubatz.  How much information do we have on Carson and Congressman Keith Ellison?; and warning that “Young Muslim children are being taught across America to engage in violence against non Muslims and Muslims who do not uphold Sharia law.”  It warns:

Unless we change the concerns I mentioned, our country will soon evolve into a Socialist country, Sharia law will continue to ‘creep’ into our society, Islamic based terrorist supporting organizations will continue the implementation of achieving the final objective of an Islamic Ummah in America and worldwide.

The website is filled with illiterate and unhinged rants like this:

Mr. Obama was a self admitted cocaine user, alcohol, and chose friends (Reverend Wright) who hated America and were terrorists (Bill Ayers). Note: More could be named. Based on this and this alone, this is not the role model we want our children to follow, nor to watch on TV at school. But why do leading media from the right and left never speak of Obama’s drug days? Because many of them have had their own drug days. . . .

It is time leaders in our country begin speaking out and simply telling the American people the basic truth why Obama and his friends are not repeted [sic] and American parents do not consider him to be a role model for our children. His primary method of resolving national and internatonal [sic] disputes he as generated) is to invite offended parties to the White House to conume [sic] alcoholic beverages. Again, not the method most parents would use to resolve serious situations and not what we want our children to view as an appropriate method. Dave G.

He previously called Obama a “crack head” and wrote that ”a vote for Hussein Obama is a vote for Sharia Law.”

Gaubatz — a civilian agent who worked for The U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations — was also the source for the “bombshell story” from supreme Muslim-hater Melanie Phillips, who wrote a 2007 piece for the British Spectator with this screaming headline, immediately promoted by leading right-wing blogs:  ”I found Saddam’s WMD Bunker!”  It details how Gaubatz personally found bunkers where Saddam’s WMDs were kept in Iraq, but “the [Bush] administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.”  As a result, Saddam’s WMD are now in the hands of Syria, and the world has been fooled into believing that he had none.

In 2006, Gaubatz created a project called “Mapping Sharia in America”, the purpose of which was to create a comprehensive map of every mosque and Islamic school in the U.S. This is what he wrote:

It is our task to conduct an extensive mapping of all the Islamic day schools, mosques, and other identifiable organizations in the US and to determine which ones teach or preach Islamic law, Sharib.

This investigation will also map the leadership of these Muslim organizations and their other affiliations. We will also attempt to uncover any related businesses used or run by the organizations as fronts for money laundering and other illicit activities.

Finally, we will examine and map any potential targets situated near these organizations, such as city, county, and federal government buildings, schools and universities, US military installations, major utility or infrastructure sites (i.e., nuclear installations, pipelines, water supply, etc.), and transportation hubs.

Back in 2007, the libertarian Jim Henley detailed more facts demonstrating that Gaubatz is a “paranoid, racist loon.”  Just read some of that.  Or this.

This is the ranting, insane hatemonger who House Republicans are now using as their expert source to demand an investigation into CAIR’s villainous plot to place interns on Congressional committees.  It would be darkly humorous if it weren’t so ugly and dangerous.  These House members highlight CAIR’s status as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Muslim charity case without noting that one of the most powerful groups in Congress has actually been directly involved in an espionage case against the U.S., while numerous other corporations which receive substantial largesse from Congress have been convicted of all sorts of serious wrongdoing.

This is the precise rank fear-mongering and compulsive need for an Internal Enemy that has driven American policy and political culture for the entire decade.  Brave Congressional Democrats love to spend their time formally condemning people.  If anything merits formal condemnation, it’s this foul Republican witch hunt.

UPDATE:  As sphodros notes in comments, here’s a chart reflecting the religious affiliation of members of the current Congress:

89.3 percent of the members of Congress are Christian, 8.4% are Jewish, and a grand total of 2 members (.4%) are Muslim.  Their representation on the chart (the green section) is so small they’re practically invisible.  Muslims comprise .6% of the American population.  Yet these people are running around screaming about the imminent “Islamization of America” and imposition of Sharia law and calling for criminal investigations because a few interns on Congressional Committees – American citizens — might be Muslim and are therefore “spies.”  These are members of the U.S. House of Representatives doing that.   And they’re not alone:

In another conversation, [Joe Lieberman] told me that he was reading “America Alone,” a book by the conservative commentator Mark Steyn, which argues that Europe is succumbing, demographically and culturally, to an onslaught by Islam, leaving America friendless in its confrontation with Islamic extremism [GG: that book also flirts with explicit advocacy of anti-Muslim genocide].

“The thing I quote most from it is the power of demographics, in Europe particularly,” Lieberman said. “That’s what struck me the most. But the other part is a kind of confirmation of what I know and what I’ve read elsewhere, which is that Islamist extremism has an ideology, and it’s expansionist, it’s an aggressive ideology. And the title I took to mean that we Americans will have ultimate responsibility for stopping this expansionism.”

They’re breeding like rabbits, want to take over everything (through the power of interns on Congressional Committees), and we must stop them.  It’s the solemn challenge of our generation.

Further reading:

Richard Silverstein: Republicans Gone Wild Muslim Spies on Capitol Hill

Raw Story: Muslim Spies

Media Matters Coverage

Lindsey Graham, senior Republican senator proves that even when the GOP tries to get it right they can manage to mess things up. In condemning the wackos Graham does a good job but he has an epic fail when he lets out a (freudian?) slip that, “[Obama] is not a Moslem, he is a good man.” It reminds us of John McCain’s sorry answer to the crazy lady who asked him during the presidential election if Obama was an “Ayrab, a Mooslim.”