Grover Norquist is an Islamist sympathizer
LAMB: You also say that Grover Norquist, who -- who is he, by the way?
SCHWARTZ: Well, Grover Norquist is a very prominent fund-raiser, and what can I say, wheeler dealer and fixer in the Republican Party, Republican circles and in the conservative movement. And Mr. Norquist is someone who had -- prior to September 11, had cultivated the Muslim leadership in the United States, the Arab-American leadership in the United States, and had attempted to bring the American Muslim and Arab-American communities into the Republican camp, kind of as a parallel, I think, to the role of Jews in the Democratic Party. And he had formed an alliance which still he maintains with, essentially, the same group of people, the same Wahhabi, Saudi-backed radical Muslim figures who have had and had taken over and continue to exercise great influence in the leadership of the American Muslim community.
LAMB: Again, what`s wrong with this?
SCHWARTZ: Well, what`s wrong with this is, first of all -- there are several things wrong with it. There`s an abstract issue, and that is that the American republic cannot and should not take the official position or even a semi-official position that Wahhabi Islam, Saudi Islam, is the only form of Islam. This is what the Saudis and Wahhabis wanted and got, to a great extent. We cannot have a situation where the United States of America, whether as a community of believers or as an intellectual community or as a political factor, goes on the assumption that in dealing with Islam, we have to only deal with Wahhabis and Saudis. This is -- this is -- this is giving up the field to the extremists. This is giving up the field to the people who are -- were, in fact, the ideological preparers of September 11, the ideological backers and supporters of September 11.
For more
http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1713
The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa’ud from Tradition to Terror
by Stephen Schwartz
November 25, 2002
White House Doesn't Condemn Muslim Leader's Remarks
By David Brody, Washington, D.C., correspondent
A Muslim leader has compared two Christian leaders to Osama bin Laden, but the White House has been silent.
The spokesman for a leading American Muslim group says he will not apologize for remarks he made comparing two prominent conservative Christian leaders to Osama bin Laden.
It all started after CBN President Pat Robertson and Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell expressed their view that the religion of Islam — at the core level — is not one of peace. President Bush came out with public comments distancing the White House from those remarks. Then, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said Falwell and Robertson would kill Muslims given the chance. This time, though, the White House has not condemned those remarks.
Joe Glover, from the Family Policy Network, is disappointed with the president for putting Christianity on the back burner.
"His remarks are consistent with his behavior," Glover said. "He's holding and hosting Ramadan Iftar services in the White House to celebrate Islam, and yet the best we can get having to do with Christianity is a tree on the White House lawn."
It may be a situation where Bush is trying to straddle the political fence, making sure not to alienate Muslim Americans. But Robert Spencer, an expert on the Islamic religion, questions that strategy.
"It's good not to offend people, but it's useless to avoid defending people by refusing to tell them the truth, and that's what the Bush administration is running the risk of doing," Spencer said.
Glover, however, thinks Bush is running the risk of alienating the Evangelical community.
"I think a lot of people I've spoken to are scratching their heads and wondering what the born-again Evangelical nature of Bush's life is really — when is that going to come out?" Glover said.
Some Evangelical leaders are probably wondering the same thing.
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0023414.html