Campaign slogans re Islam:

Obama: Have you hugged a Muslim today?
Hillary: Let's examine this
Edwards: Poor Muslims need a break

McCain: I like "the Islam"
Romney: Down with extremist Islam only
Giuliani: Terrorists are not Muslims
Huckabee: Shazzam!

Posted by: jewdog at January 21, 2008 9:44 AM

Thanks RS for your sanity and truth-speaking in this currently insane Western world suiciding itself to, as Pat Condell put it on his video, a "repressive medieval ideology."

In their inability to even say the words Islamic and Jihad, to not even be able to name the enemy, the Democrats have gone from pitiful to reprehensible.

Posted by: darcy at January 21, 2008 10:16 AM

Romney made an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on the night before the Nevada/S.C. caucus/primary and brought up the dire threat posed by "Global Jihad" and a second reference to jihad too without any modifiers.

McCain, on the other hand, is still stuck in his "radical, fundamentalist, islamic terrorist extremists" mode where he will never mention Islam or jihad without attaching all those scary sounding reduncancies. Islam IS radically fundamentalist Mr. McCain. Jihad IS extreme and terror-spawning.

I respect McCain in many ways, but not the way he pussyfoots arond these realities.

Fred Thompson is said to be a good friend of John McCain and undoubtedly helped him win S.C. by attacking Huckabee so effectively. Will he now endorse McCain? I think his supporters will split between McCain and Romney.

Giuliani has put all his eggs in the Florida basket. Is he even a factor anymore? Maybe, since so many Floridians have cast absentee ballots. Probably not though.

As for the Democrats, there's hardly a peep out of the lot of them about Islam or jihad. Threat? What threat? It's all The Great Satan George Bush's fault!

Posted by: alexon at January 21, 2008 11:44 AM

Good presentation. You are no Pat Condell, LOL, just kidding, but you get your point across very well.
Thanx...

Posted by: duh_swami at January 21, 2008 11:50 AM

The Republican candidates, certainly less afraid to state the truth than their Democratic counterparts, are still not tackling the issue head on.

Senator McCain's phrase 'radical Islamic extremists' makes me wonder if he'd be O.K. with 'moderate Islamic extremists'. Does he really not know what they're being extreme about?

Governor Huckabee, in referring to Allah as 'their god', displays, if not some manner of political correctness or an unwillingness to honestly confront the issue, an ignorance of Islam as Muslims understand it.

And of course, Mayor Giuliani's assertion that Islam has been perverted, without citation, is laughable.

Moderating the beliefs and actions of those who publicly cite Islam as their motivation with a string of temperate adjectives, or stating that their god and ours are not the same, or regurgitating an uninformed notion, leaves Ma and Pa America, to the delight of CAIR and others, perpetually uninformed and confused about Islam.

I made a small donation to Senator McCain's campaign a few months ago. After waiting a few weeks before politely inquiring about his understanding of Islam and jihadists, the only response I've received is repeated requests for additional donations.

In a recent brief phone conversation, an overworked McCain staffer told me that talking about Islam is 'touchy'.

Why should that be?

Posted by: PRCS at January 21, 2008 12:10 PM

I'm sure Mr. Spencer has covered John MacCain. Does anyone have a link?

It would appear McCain could be Israel's worst nightmare, even worse than George W. Bush is that is possible.

http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp?BlogID=10749

(Does it bother me if McCain mentions the name of a former Secretary of State I blelieve to be a vicious anti-Semite?)

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDE5NWYxYzBiYzUyNWE5YzkyNmMwN2I2MjUyNGYyMzU=

Posted by: monk at January 21, 2008 12:44 PM

McCain's hero status is overblown. Certainly, he suffered greatly - for a long time. On the other hand, others suffered greatly, too. Over 50,000 literally gave the last full measure.

What did McCain do? Well, he was shot down and tortured. He was certainly a victim with some heroic overtones. But, his supporters have gone to the hero well once too often.

McCain is no conservative, and he remains confused with respect to the enemy's identification years after that identity should have been crystal clear.

Sorry, lieutenant, but you just don't cut it.

Posted by: Havoc at January 21, 2008 12:46 PM

What obviously nobody understand is, that this is exactly the idea of the whole thing: To prolong this war as long as possible to benefit the people behind the curtains, the bankers and big corporations.

Posted by: Swissy at January 21, 2008 12:48 PM

On the GOP side, it's pretty much Romney vs McCain vs Giuliani. I don't know why everybody is giving McCain's win more weight, given that NV had more delegates than SC, and this is also the year of nomentum. On the Dem side, Hilary vs Obama.

I don't believe McCain has been covered so far. Only Hilary & Romney. Whenever Robert does cover McCain, I do hope he addresses not only his support of the surge, but also his opposition to Jihadis being held at Gitmo. The idea of McCain being 'National Security' candidate given his support of the surge is laughable: Romney addresses partly the underlying ideology, as does Giuliani.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at January 21, 2008 1:43 PM

Infidel Pride, you wrote: "The idea of McCain being 'National Security' candidate given his support of the surge is laughable"

Probably I have not been following this carefully. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservatives beleive the surge has been demonstrably successful. What is the folly in the surge?

Posted by: monk at January 21, 2008 2:00 PM

Aside from the objections that we here have on stabilizing Iraq, the problem with McCain being the 'National Security' candidate is his stands on Gitmo, enemy combatants, torture and the like. If I were Osama, McCain would be my senator.

As for the surge, I'm on the same page as Hugh on this.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at January 21, 2008 3:18 PM

Sorry, I missed Hugh's article. Between work and reading several sites I miss a lot. What is Hugh's position? Surge is much over-blown and nearly worthless in the long run?

Michael Medved, Is he on our side?

http://www.jewishreview.org/node/9720

Posted by: monk at January 21, 2008 3:24 PM

One scenario to consider is that the Republicans will split so badly between McCain, Romney, Huckabee, and perhaps Gulliani that no candidate acquires the majority of delegates needed for nomination. Then, after 17 ballots, someone who did not even run (Gingrich?) is nominated as a compromise candidate.

Posted by: Karl2 at January 21, 2008 3:32 PM

Send every candidate a copy of Tawfiq Hamid's article - with Hugh's annotations, that is, the warning that for all practical purposes what Hamid calls Salafism is nothing more or less than Islam, taken straight, 100 % proof.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at January 21, 2008 3:55 PM

Most may be surprised but Tom Tancredo had the clearest vision of Islamic terror. He has noted this in his book 'In Mortal Danger'. I am sad that even in these times of mortal danger Americans cannot bring themselves to do the right thing by supporting a patriotic statesman. Any wonder, Americans are struggling to pick one candidate worth his / her salt. Oh well...

Posted by: Alert at January 22, 2008 12:48 AM

Does anyone know what the Republicans were asked in this debate?

I know that the Democrats' question on Pakistan was not ideal for them to articulate their viewpoints on Islam because:

1) It was asked in the context of a larger discussion on nuclear proliferation
2) The entire dicussion was focused on logistical and technical concerns
3) The issue was "off the campaign trail", in that nuclear proliferation is not a major talking point, but a pet issue of the moderator (who said as much).

Basically, all the Democratic candidates burbled around in answering this series of questions. This could provide many troubling warning signals--the moderators' judgement, the candidates' lack of knowledge on proliferation, the lack of public interest on nuclear proliferation, etc. But I'm not sure the differing responses suggest what Mr. Spencer claims.

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at January 22, 2008 1:49 AM

Great comments, Robert. It appears Mitt is closest to understanding it all. I figure that deep down, he holds deeper views on Islam, but he's not voicing them.

Posted by: Bingo at January 22, 2008 2:28 AM

Great comments, Robert. It appears Mitt is closest to understanding it all. I figure that deep down, he holds deeper views on Islam, but he's not voicing them.

Posted by: Bingo at January 22, 2008 2:28 AM

Oh crap, that's how you do that!

Posted by: Bingo at January 22, 2008 2:30 AM