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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Romney: No Muslims in My Cabinet

posted by on November 27 at 13:48 PM

Earlier today, Mormon Mitt Romney told diplomat Mansoor Ijaz that he would not consider a Muslim for his cabinet, reasoning that Muslims make up too small a religious majority to qualify. According to Ijaz’s report in the Christian Science Monitor,

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that “jihadism” is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, “…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.”

After the story blew up over the course of the morning, Romney responded by denying Ijaz’s account of the question.

At an availability with reporters [in St. Petersburg, Fla.], Romney answered questions about today’s report suggesting that he would not appoint Muslims to his Cabinet. “No, that’s not what I said. His question was, did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet in order to confront radical jihad, or would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet?’ And I said no, I don’t think you need a Muslim in the Cabinet to take on radical jihad any more than we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature.”

Ijaz maintains that that’s not what he said at all. I expect a recording of the exchange will emerge showing that either: a) Romney’s right, and Ijaz is lying; or b) Romney’s lying, and he actually did endorse a religious quota system for choosing his cabinet; then, when reporters questioned this nutty suggestion, he backpedaled and blamed Ijaz for his gaffe.

RSS icon Comments

1

wow. so a guy from a cult objects to an actual religion?

go figure.

(note: I know about the underwear and a lot more stuff, and have had Mormon relatives ...)

Posted by Will in Seattle | November 27, 2007 1:46 PM
2

i wouldn't put a muslim OR a mormon on my cabinet, for the simple reason that THEY BELIEVE IN SOME BULLSHIT.

Posted by max solomon | November 27, 2007 1:46 PM
3

B

Posted by Mr. Poe | November 27, 2007 1:55 PM
4

I believe
what we have here
has been retested in
the hoodwink of
Yentl.

Posted by Nutty Professor | November 27, 2007 1:56 PM
5

even his crazy quote is more moderate that pat robertson's explicit refusal to have any non-evangelical christians in his cabinet

Posted by vooodooo84 | November 27, 2007 2:05 PM
6

You know, I would have a lot more respect for some of these pandering right-wing nutbars if they didn't fricking LIE all the time. Their own instruction manual tells them lying is wrong - but they do it straight-faced, even when they're caught on camera doing it, and think they can just get away with it. Wait, aren't you, like, NOT SUPPOSED TO DELIBERATELY DO things that your Book From the Invisible Sky Fairy tells you are Bad Things? RTFM - it's supposed to be your own damned Good Book!

Posted by Geni | November 27, 2007 2:08 PM
7

please distinguish by analysis of beliefs the difference between cult and religion? i'd say it's just who's more broadly accepted and how recently their unicorn fantasies allegedly occurred.

Posted by hey will in seattle | November 27, 2007 2:10 PM
8

Any serious presidential candidate should select a cabinet composed entirely of atheists, because no atheist has ever done anything bad anywhere, ever.

Posted by Greg | November 27, 2007 2:14 PM
9

Like most Republicans, Mitt Romney doesn't want Muslims in his cabinet.

He wants them lurking in the closets, and under the bed. Waiting, waiting to get you!

Posted by NapoleonXIV | November 27, 2007 2:18 PM
10

You know what we have a lot of, in America, is women.

Posted by Kiru Banzai | November 27, 2007 2:24 PM
11

using his analysis, we shouldn't have a mormon leader.

Posted by infrequent | November 27, 2007 2:26 PM
12

@10 - Boom!

Posted by Paulus | November 27, 2007 3:02 PM
13

@1: Why are Mormons a cult and Islam an actual religion? It seems to me that religions are basically just cults that have grown.

I'm sick of hearing about Romney. I hope he is the Republican candidate, since I think he will be much easier to beat that Giuliani, but I doubt this will happen. However, I would rather Romney be president than Giuliani, who pretty much scares the shit out of me.

Posted by Peter | November 27, 2007 3:10 PM
14

Well, in all the blog posts I've seen about this issue, the interpretation was that Romney was indeed calling for a quota (one that did not include atheists either, by the way).

Posted by Tlazolteotl | November 27, 2007 3:13 PM
15

Peter, you might find some comfort in this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/059631.php

Posted by Tlazolteotl | November 27, 2007 3:15 PM
16

according to the american religious identification survey in 2001:

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf

50,873,000 Catholics in the US in 2001
33,830,000 Baptists in the US in 2001
27,486,000 reporting "no religion"
14,190,000 Christian - no denomination supplied
14,150,000 Methodists in the US in 2001
2,831,000 Jews in the US in 2001
2,787,000 Mormons in the US in 2001
1,104,000 Muslims in the US in 2001

I'm seeing a lot more of us nonbelievers than mormons and muslims combined- where's our "representation" in the 15 cabinet posts?

Posted by Phred Meijer | November 27, 2007 3:22 PM
17

Does anybody seriously believe for a second that Romney would put a Muslim in the Cabinet? Really? You need to ask him? How about asking him if he can name a Muslim in the US -- someone he knows would be nice, but even just one he's heard of.

And if he says "Louis Farrakhan", shoot him.

Posted by Fnarf | November 27, 2007 3:48 PM
18

Mitt Romney is the only Mormon I could name on short notice.

Posted by elenchos | November 27, 2007 4:00 PM
19

@18 - I could name about ten, actually.

But you're right, we need more elected and appointed atheists.

Posted by Will in Seattle | November 27, 2007 4:04 PM
20

louis farrakhan is the only muslim i can name.

oh, and donny in my office is from iran, so i guess he's a muslim. and ross the engineer i use sometimes is also persian.

Posted by max solomon | November 27, 2007 4:05 PM
21

Louis Farrakhan is not a Muslim.

Posted by Fnarf | November 27, 2007 4:14 PM
22

@18
elenchos, you've never heard of Donny Osmond?

Posted by Phred Meijer | November 27, 2007 4:22 PM
23

@Fnarf "Louis Farrakhan is not a Muslim."

...depending on who you ask.

Kind of like how Catholics aren't Christians, according to these other Christians. It's not easy to peacefully coexist with people who want the power not just to define themselves, but everyone else too.

RE: Donny Osmond. He's dead. I've heard of Joseph Smith too, but he's dead. Mitt could just say "I've heard of Mohammed!"

Posted by elenchos | November 27, 2007 4:26 PM
24

Donny's not dead!

Farrakhan's not a Muslim no matter WHO you ask. The "Nation of Islam" is a cartoon religion that has zilch to do with real Islam.

Farrakhan has never read the Qu'ran, for starters; he CAN'T read the Qu'ran, because he doesn't know any Arabic. Islam, unlike Christianity, requires that their holy book be read in the original language only. Very little of the theology of the NOI even has any roots in Islam, as the founders were almost wholly ignorant of Islam. It's like a cargo cult or something; they adopted the name of Islam because they thought it reflected their resentment of Western whitey, but it has about as much relevance as a crow with a bit of newsprint woven into his nest.

Someone like Fred Phelps is on firmer ground; at least he's read his Bible and is familiar with the contents therein. Farrakhan's a joke, period.

Posted by Fnarf | November 27, 2007 4:39 PM
25

Yes, Fnarf, but he could memorize it by just repeating it, like most of the madrassas do.

Most mythologies started as oral traditions, handed down around the campfire.

Posted by Will in Seattle | November 27, 2007 4:43 PM
26

Reading the Koran in Arabic is one tenet of mainstream Islam. Disagreeing with one or more tenets of a religion might get you branded a heretic by some, but not me. It's like you're saying you are not a real Catholic if your Mass isn't in Latin. It's not for me to tell Catholics what Real Catholicism is.

I just don't get how you can say one religion is more of a joke than any other, and I don't get why it's my job to try to figure out what the criteria are to remain orthodox within a wholly nonsense belief system.

Posted by elenchos | November 27, 2007 4:50 PM
27

No, Will, he couldn't have just memorized it. He doesn't know it. It's not important to him, and he's not interested in the tenets of Islam. He doesn't believe "there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet" -- how can he be Islam?

Look, it's not even close to real Islam. It doesn't even have a real theology. It does not say much for your intellectual abilities if you can't see the difference between a fifteen-hundred-year-old theological, judicial, and cultural system and a bunch of gibberish. IT'S NOT EVEN BASED ON ISLAM. Your straw-man argument -- no one seriously argues that Catholicism isn't a form of Christianity -- ignores the fact that ZERO Muslims would even recognize any of what Farrakhan says as being related to their religion -- and Islam has considerably more and more varied sects than Christianity does.

Saying that NOI isn't Islam is like saying Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't Christianity. It's not.

I know it's fun and hip and trendy to just dismiss everyone's religion as a load of hooey, but as an intellectual method it is seriously deficient. If you are trying to engage with the world, you have to understand it first. If "wholly nonsense" is all you have to say, and you can't make the even the most obvious distinctions, then your ability to comprehend the world you live in is lacking. A billion people DON'T think Islam is "wholly nonsense", and you would be well served to try and understand them.

Even the stupidest Islamic peasant can see at a glance that NOI is rubbish.

Posted by Fnarf | November 27, 2007 5:04 PM
28

will is succinct but wrong; while fnarf is ever full of himself and wanks off intellectually for his own amusement.

Posted by point x point synopsis: | November 27, 2007 5:40 PM
29

I just Googled "catholics are not Christian" and found 15,000,000
Born Again sites that seriously argue that Catholics are not real Christians. Backed up by real Bible quotes and everything. Maybe you would like to decide who is right in that theological dispute too?

This is a very serious point. If you are going to go down this path, do you think we should take sides on whether the Suni or Shia are "real" Moslems too? Do you know why we don't? Because we have a lot to lose if we were to pick a winner in that pissing contest.

That's alway why it's easy to dismiss the Nation of Islam. They are too weak to do anything about it.

If the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster called themselves Christian, and they had the sheer numbers of followers to make it matter what they thought, they'd get respect.

Posted by elenchos | November 27, 2007 5:47 PM
30

"Catholics are not Christians" is not a serious intellectual position, no matter how many backwoods dipshits take it.

Likewise, Shia and Sunni are solidly in the mainstream of Islamic thought, and no one seriously says otherwise.

Look at it this way: if the President went to the upcoming Palestinian conference and said he has been talking to a Shi'ite about Islam to better understand their culture, no one would be offended. If he said he had been talking to the Nation of Islam, they would immediately walk out.

There are exactly ZERO Sunnis and ZERO Shia who would accept that NOI has anything to do with their religion at all. Zero Ismailis, not even any Sufis. Are Sufis Islam? You could have a discussion on that topic, and reasonable people can disagree. Not with NOI.

There ARE objective standards one can use. Looking at the tenets of a religion, one can make statements about the tradition in which it falls. Nothing to do with belief. No rational observer could possibly look at the NOI and come to the conclusion that it's an Islamic religion, any more than if I started a "Ninth Church of Christ in My Toast" and argued that my toast was really the resurrection of Christ, and that the Bible has been superceded by my collective writings here on Slog, and that you should all run to the store and dump out all the bread in the bread aisle out on the floor, that that would be Christianity. It doesn't share ANY of the characteristics.

To say that the NOI is Islam is profoundly disrespectful to something like a fourth of the world's population, NOT because NOI is totally full of shit, but because it DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY ISLAMIC TRADITION. It's made-up bullshit. I'm not talking about truth, I'm talking about understanding.

Posted by Fnarf | November 27, 2007 6:00 PM
31

haha elenchos, holy fsm, stupendous, support over there in the comments
i need to add to the second life pic!

Posted by The Cantos are too deep | November 27, 2007 6:02 PM
32

Catholicism not Christian is the wrong analogy and more relevant to the original post:
NOI is to Islam as Mormonism is to Christianity
Both founded by all-American hucksters. Taking words and names from a religion they knew nothing about to create an even freakier myth than the source myth. Both have an entrepreneurial/pyramid/multi-level marketing leadership structure and social culture. Scientology is the same. 100% American "religions".
Romney is related so close the founding family of Mormonism, its the equivalent of Farrakhan or Elijah Muhammed's nephew running for president.(or L.Ron Hubbard's).

Posted by anna | November 27, 2007 7:28 PM

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