It's a CAMPAIGN PHOTO OP from 2000 in Florida!
It's kind of like this one:
Posted on 02/20/2003 4:19:54 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Conservatives Fight Over Islam
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003
WASHINGTON – A fierce, nearly three-week running battle of accusations and counter-accusations between two conservative icons has brought to the front burner a long-festering debate among President Bush’s supporters on how far the White House should go in seeking Islamic support.
Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, has accused two White House officials – Ali Talbah and his predecessor Sukhail Khan – of putting President Bush in the company of “people who have made no secret of their sympathy for terrorists, provided them financial support, excused their murderous attacks and/or sought to impede the prosecution of the war against them.” Gaffney reiterated these charges in his Washington Times column Tuesday.
Gaffney’s initial comment in this flap came at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Jan. 31.
His remarks sparked a stinging rebuttal from Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and one-time confidant of Newt Gingrich when the latter was speaker of the House.
“There is no place in the conservative movement for racial prejudice, religious bigotry or ethnic hatred,” Norquist told Gaffney in a Feb. 5 letter. He went on to accuse his fellow conservative of attacking each of the two White House officials because of their Muslim faith.
Norquist then banished Gaffney from further attendance at his influential coalition meetings that he holds every Wednesday, pending an accepted apology to Tulbah and Sukhail. He added, “It is important that we, as conservatives, stand up against bigotry, racism, and religious hatred whenever it raises its ugly head.”
Gaffney replied with a three-and-a-half page single-spaced letter to Norquist that offered no apology. Gaffney not only refused to apologize but also cited chapter and verse of quotes from radical Islamic fundamentalists (Wahhabists) who had been received cordially at the White House.
He also stressed that he had taken pains to “express distinction between such Islamists, and what is, I believe, the majority of Muslims in this country whom the former [Wahhabists] are determined to recruit, intimidate, and dominate through a variety of techniques.”
The CSP boss took Norquist to task for his involvement with Islamic Institute, through which, Gaffney argued, Norquist and his associates had been instrumental in “promoting and facilitating Wahabbis’ access to the executive and legislative branches of government” and thereby “could prove politically damaging and strategically detrimental to our cause and the well-being of our country.”
Norquist says Islamic Institute “was formed to promote within the Muslim world the fact that the Koran and Islam are perfectly consistent with a free and open society.”
In an interview with NewsMax.com, Norquist said he wrote his letter because the two young White House Muslims whom Gaffney criticized were merely underlings carrying out decisions made by more senior White House officials.
“He decided to single out the kid who was a Muslim in both cases, even though the people making decisions are Presbyterians and Catholics, not Muslims,” the ATR president said.
In his latest column, Gaffney reports that one Muslim representative in a group visiting the Oval Office just days after 9/11, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, had said two days before the attack: “This country is facing a terrible fate. This country stands condemned.”
Why FBI Couldn’t Find Him
When FBI agents visited Yusuf’s home, they were stunned to learn from his wife that he was unavailable because he was with the president.
However, Norquist, while “not vouching for anyone,” said the Muslims who had access to the president passed muster with the Secret Service and the FBI or they wouldn’t have been there.
“If they were a security risk, not if they said something stupid, if they were a security risk or a problem ... the Secret Service would pull them out,” he said.
Gaffney describes as “bizarre” FBI Director Robert Mueller’s decision to speak to the American Muslim Council last year despite that group’s “long record of activities hostile to the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror.”
Walking the sometimes unclear lines between peace-loving Muslim Americans and those who pose a threat is a dilemma symbolized by the bitter dispute between Gaffney and Norquist, two well-known conservatives in the Bush constituency.
He's been asked repeatedly for proof and hasn't bothered to provide it.
And now I see he's on another thread, saying that the Republican Party is no better than Jimmy Carter and LBJ.
Add that to the fact he says Bush is a communist, a liberal, and just like Clinton, and you kind of get the picture why he's here.
Shhhhh.......we're keeping the mystery alive. Some surmise that it's actually empty.
As far as I know, President Bush had his picture taken--why it's posted on this thread in the first fifty posts, I believe--with Professor Al-Arian, because the professor's son was a staffer for David Bonior. The picture evidently was taken at an event in 2000.
Who else that was arrested today has been pictured with President Bush?
Are you serious?
It's a CAMPAIGN PHOTO OP from 2000 in Florida!
It's kind of like this one:
Florida - yes, Sami Al Arian. Check Post #64 -it has a photo of Candidate Bush posing with Al Arian, as well as a link to A WND story explaining the photo
LOL!
The professor from Florida who had been on O'Reilly and was arrested today (along with others), he and his family were photographed with President and Mrs. Bush back in 2000, evidently because the professor's son was a staffer for David Bonior, hence his familiarity with the son. Yes, the prof was evidently invited to the WH once after that, too.
From that we are being informed the President was "friends" with the professor and now we are told President Bush was "close" with the professor.
I say President Bush must be very proud of the DOJ and the FBI for today's arrests, because he is NOT a friend to terrorists.
You should try it, peabrain. You might learn something.
Yes. As far as relative danger to the United States goes, there is no comparison.
Oh, so now we are supposed to decide issues of religious freedom not based on the character of it's adherant's crimes, but in the perception of "relative danger" to the US.
I don't think so.
"We don't declare war on entire religions because of radicals who commit crimes in their name."
Straw man - I specifically said Radical Islam is our enemy in this war. And it declared war on us.
You keep qualifying exactly who it is you think we should declare war on....while incrimentally moving away from the debate this thread has centered around. ...Condemning Bush for associating in anyway with Muslims.
Again, I say that is nonsense.
Do a search on Catspaw; she posted a whole thread about it today, with good links.
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