His wife’s over there too. The State Dept is apparently funding both their trips- separate trips.
Do you have any links? I’m preparing to get outraged over this. Outraged that the news isn’t covering it. Not even Charles K mentioned it in a recent panel discussion.
If one were to hearken back to the halcyon days of the Bush Administration, one would remember that, when Bush adviser Karen Hughes was appointed Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, the Bush Administration saw improving America’s standing among Muslims abroad as a part of its national security strategy. And, as such, Hughes set up listening tours, attended meetings and worked with interfaith groups that — shocking, by today’s Republican standards — included actual Muslims.
One of those people was Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
Contemporary press accounts indicate that Rauf and Hughes were part of the February 2006 U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar. He was part of a delegation that met with her in March 2006 and held a joint press conference. A letter to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in November 2007 indicates that contacts with Hughes and Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns had continued apace.
And, of course, an interview with Foreign Policy in 2007 explored both the depths of his ongoing contact with the Administration and his so-called radical views.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/ground_zero_mosque_imam_bush_partner_for_peace.php
Bush was cozy with this imam, too. They have all sold out America.