"As many GOP insiders have said..."
Funny thing, how "GOP insiders" (if you're not one I'm sure you're dying to be) often have absolutely no clue as to how we out here in flyover country think. The "GOP insiders" sure had Ronald Reagan pegged in 1980, didn't they?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I'm waiting for Ben Ficklin to name the GOP insiders and actually provide a link or links to a webpage or webpages that subtantiate his claim that GOP insiders have made the claim about Rep. Tancredo that he says they have. Since he said GOP insiders, I'm sure that he won't simply give us the name of just one person.
This issue was hashed out on many, many threads at FR last Nov and Dec.
On one hand you have this evidence that Vdare came up with and if you want to believe that, it is OK
On the other hand, there was extensive data compiled that showed the opposite. Particular House, Senate, and Gubanatorial races. Exit polling. I could spend a couple of hours and pull all that info together. It wouldn't change your mind.
What you think or what the FR cult of self-deception thinks is irrelevant. It is what the republican party thinks that is important.
If what you think was reality, the republicans would be running with it. They're not.
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the founder, president, and CEO of The Center for Security Policy. During the Reagan administration, Gaffney was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy, and a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John Tower (R-Texas). He is a columnist for The Washington Times, Jewish World Review, and Townhall.com and has also contributed to The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New Republic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, and Newsday.
Mr. Gaffney wrote an article about Grover Norquist entitled " Troubling Influence". Here is a link to that article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11209.
Below is a copy of a portion of an introduction to Mr. Gaffney's column that was written by David Horowitz:
It is with a heavy heart therefore, that I am posting this article, which is the most complete documentation extant of Grover Norquist’s activities in behalf of the Islamist Fifth Column. I have confronted Grover about these issues and have talked to others who have done likewise. But it has been left to Frank Gaffney and a few others, including Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson, to make the case and to suffer the inevitable recriminations that have followed earlier disclosures of some aspects of this story.
Up to now, the controversy over these charges has been dismissed or swept under the rug, as a clash of personalities or the product of one of those intra-bureaucratic feuds so familiar to the Washington scene. Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking. The reality is much more serious. No one reading this document to its bitter end will confuse its claims and confirming evidence with those of a political cat fight. On the basis of the evidence assembled here, it seems beyond dispute that Grover Norquist has formed alliances with prominent Islamic radicals who have ties to the Saudis and to Libya and to Palestine Islamic Jihad, and who are now under indictment by U.S. authorities. Equally troubling is that the arrests of these individuals and their exposure as agents of terrorism have not resulted in noticeable second thoughts on Grover’s part or any meaningful effort to dissociate himself from his unsavory friends.
As Frank Gaffney’s article recounts, Grover’s own Islamic Institute was initially financed by one of the most notorious of these operatives, Abdurahman Alamoudi, a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah who told the Annual Convention of the Islamic Association of Palestine in 1996, “If we are outside this country we can say ‘Oh, Allah destroy America.’ But once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it.” Grover appointed Alamoudi’s deputy, Khaled Saffuri to head his own organization. Together they gained access to the White House for Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and others with similar agendas who used their cachet to spread Islamist influence to the American military and the prison system and the universities and the political arena with untold consequences for the nation.
Parts of this story have been published before, but never in such detail and never with the full picture of Islamist influence in view. No doubt, that is partly because of Grover Norquist’s large (and therefore intimidating) presence in the Washington community. Many have been quite simply afraid to raise these issues and thus have allowed Grover to make them seem a matter of individual personality differences. This suits his agendas well, as it does those of his Islamist allies. If matters in dispute reflect personal animosity or “racial” prejudice, as Grover insists, then the true gravity of these charges is obscured. The fact remains that while Grover has denied the charges or sought to dismiss them with such arguments on many occasions, he has never answered them. If he wishes to do so now, the pages of frontpagemag.com are open to him.
Many have been reluctant to support these charges or to make them public because they involve a prominent conservative. I am familiar with these attitudes from my years on the Left. Loyalty is an important political value, but there comes a point where loyalty to friends or to parties comes into conflict with loyalty to fundamental principles and ultimately to one’s country. Grover’s activities have reached that point. E.M. Forster, a weak-spirited liberal, once said that if he had to choose between betraying his country and his friends, he “hoped [he] would have the guts” to betray his country.
So we now see that just as I suspected "GOP insiders" really means one person, Grover Norquist.
In July, 2001, Grover Norquist received an award from the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), a civil liberties group headed by Sami Al-Arian. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian pled guilty to one count of conspiracy "to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad." He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, of which he had already served 38, and to then be deported.
Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney. For more than ten years Johnson has written with his former law partner John H. Hinderaker on public policy issues including income inequality, income taxes, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, welfare reform, and race in the criminal justice system. Both Johnson and Hinderaker are fellows of the Claremont Institute. Their articles have appeared in National Review, The American Enterprise, American Experiment Quarterly, and newspapers from Florida to California. The Claremont Institute has archived many of their articles here.
Johnson lives with his family in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Minnesota Law School.
On December 10, 2003, he posted a column at Power Line entitled "THE LIES OF GROVER NORQUIST". Here is a link to that column: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/005344.php. Below is a copy of part of that column:
Hugh [Hewitt] replayed his one-hour interview of Gaffney and Norquist on the show tonight and I took the opportunity to listen to it again. Having just reread the materials cited above, I was able to weigh the substance of Norquist's responses to Hugh's questions more carefully than the first time around. One particular exchange struck me as illustrative of Norquist's deceit and evasiveness.
Hugh asked Norquist to respond to the charge that an indicted (indicted as a bagman for Muhammar Khadaffy) Islamist -- Abdurahman Alamoudi -- had contributed $10,000 by personal check to help set up the Islamic Institute under Norquist's auspices. He stated that the check had been returned; he didn't say whether it had been cashed or when it had been returned. (In a footnote, Gaffney cites a source quoting Norquist's colleague Khaled Saffuri to the effect that the check was returned in October 2001.)
Norquist further stated that the institute was founded by Khaled Saffuri, as though that answered Hugh's question regarding Alamoudi's role in funding the institute. The institute is run by Saffuri, who, according to Gaffney, is one of Alamoudi's former deputies; Norquist never responded to Gaffney's charge that Saffuri is Alamoudi's former deputy. In other words, Norquist in effect conceded that Alamoudi in fact contributed substantial funds to Norquist's Islamic Institute and Norquist never disputed Gaffney's point about Saffuri's relationship to Alamoudi.
Norquist's themes are those of the Islamist apologist organizations like CAIR and the American Muslim Council: informed critics of Islamofascism and advocates of American interests like Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney are portrayed as bigots, and key law enforcement tools against domestic terrorism are alleged to be nefarious infringments of civil rights. When Norquist attempted to enlist James Woolsey to his cause on the latter score, Gaffney powerfully established that Norquist was all but lying.
Finally, except when attacking Gaffney personally, the tone of Norquist's remarks was insouciant and unserious. Norquist's response to the merits of Gaffney's charges was by turns evasive, deceitful, and flip. In defending himself from Gaffney's chages, Grover Norquist is an advocate with a fool for a client.
On July 30, 2004, Michelle Malkin, posted an article on her blog entitled "WHAT SAY YOU NOW, GROVER NORQUIST?". Here is a link to that article: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000318.htm.
Portions of that column are copied below:
The Washington Post reports that Abdurahman Alamoudi, once embraced as a "mainstream" and "moderate" Muslim activist who courted both the Clinton and Bush administrations, will plead guilty today to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Libya in violation of U.S. law and attempting to hide it from the government
...
His sympathy for Hamas was no secret. In 2000, independent terrorism investigator Rita Katz, Director of the SITE Institute, while working undercover, taped Alamoudi voicing his open support for the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. Alamoudi stated before an excited, cheering crowd:
"I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas...Anybody support Hamas here? Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas. I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezballah...Does anybody support Hezballah here? I want you to send a message. It's an occupation, stupid...Hamas is fighting an occupation. It's a legal fight."
Despite this defiant public declaration of support for terrorists, Alamoudi was welcomed in GOP elite circles at the behest of power player Grover Norquist. Insight magazine reported:
Norquist was Alamoudi's most influential Washington facilitator, authorities believe, noting that Norquist reminds friend and foe alike that he is close to the president's powerful political strategist, Karl Rove.
Norquist, who previously has denied any suggestion that his work facilitated any wrongdoing, not only introduced Alamoudi to Washington GOP power circles but also Sammy Al Arian, whom prosecutors arrested earlier this year for alleged terrorist activities. Federal law-enforcement sources say they are focusing on some of Norquist's associates and financial ties to terrorist groups.
Alamoudi ran, directed, founded or funded at least 15 Muslim political-action and charitable groups that have taken over the public voice of Islamic Americans [see sidebar, p. 34]. Through a mix of civil-rights complaints, Old Left-style political coalitions and sheer persistence, Alamoudi helped inch the image of U.S.-based Islamists toward the political mainstream and induced politicians to embrace his organizations. He sought to secure the support first of the Clinton administration in seeking to repeal certain antiterrorist laws, but when Bill Clinton failed to deliver, Alamoudi defected to Bush, then governor of Texas. Alamoudi and other Muslim leaders met with Bush in Austin in July [2000], offering to support his bid for the White House in exchange for Bush's commitment to repeal certain antiterrorist laws.
That meeting, sources say, began a somewhat strained relationship between the self-appointed Muslim leaders and the Bush team. Some senior Bush advisers voiced caution to Rove, who is said to have disregarded such concerns, seeing instead an opportunity to bring another ethnic and religious group into the GOP big tent. A photo of the Austin event shows Bush with Alamoudi standing over his left shoulder, flanked by the former head of the Pakistani Communist Party, several open supporters of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups and other individuals Insight is trying to identify.
Canceled checks obtained by Insight show Alamoudi provided seed money to start a GOP-oriented Muslim group called the Islamic Institute, which Norquist originally chaired and now is led by former Alamoudi aide and former AMC staffer Khaled Saffuri. A White House memo obtained by Insight prepared for coordinating Muslim and Arab-American "public-liaison" events with the White House shows that the Islamic Institute was instrumental in establishing the connection. The memo, from early 2001, provides lists of invitees and the name, date of birth and Social Security number of each. Norquist, as the first chairman of the Islamic Institute, tops the list.
Alamoudi and others, including Norquist, tried to keep critics at bay by branding them as "racists" and "bigots."
. . .
Norquist owes a public apology to fellow Republicans whom he has smeared as bigots for raising fundamental questions about Alamoudi and the Islamist-supporting apparatus in America. More importantly, Norquist owes answers about why he partnered with a known terrorist sympathizer, whether or not he now defends Alamoudi, when he plans to stop hiding behind the race card, and what exactly he plans to do to disavow Islamist influences.
So Ben Ficklin's "GOP insiders" is really one GOP insider, Grover Norquist.
The last paragraph of Michelle Malkin's July 30, 2004, column says it all when it comes to Grover Norquist:
Norquist owes a public apology to fellow Republicans whom he has smeared as bigots for raising fundamental questions about Alamoudi and the Islamist-supporting apparatus in America. More importantly, Norquist owes answers about why he partnered with a known terrorist sympathizer, whether or not he now defends Alamoudi, when he plans to stop hiding behind the race card, and what exactly he plans to do to disavow Islamist influences.
Gorver Norquist has a history of smearing Republicans when they raised legitimate questions and a history of partnering with a know terrorist sympathizer.
Gee, his comment about Rep. Tancredo really means something.