Ethics

Obama Met With a Muslim!

By Ed Brayton

Stop the presses! The right wing media and blogosphere is all abuzz over Barack Obama meeting with Shiite Imam Hassan Qazwini while he was in Michigan the other day. The Worldnutdaily declares it "breaking news" that "Shiite leader met privately with Obama." Ann Coulter wannabe Debbie Schlussel, who thinks every Muslim in the universe is an agent for Bin Laden, declares that the visit "says a lot about the company Obama keeps...and why he shouldn't be President."

Here's what neither the Worldnutdaily nor Schlussel bothers to tell their readers: Qazwini met with President Bush as well, both during the 2000 election and innumerable times over the last 7 years. Ironically, when they met in the 2000 election, Qazwini and his brother both asked about the possibility of removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq and Bush said that while that would be nice, he couldn't make it part of his official policy.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 19, 2008 (boomark / email).