Now that the rumors about Hillary and her aide have hit the Times of London, Hillary will feel she cannot abandon her protégé. She instead is likely to become indignant, more determined to be seen, defiantly, with Huma Abedin on every occasion and to attack those who express the slightest, perfectly justified reservations about the perfectly plausible notion that Mrs. Clinton gets her idea of Islam, or of what Islam might be, necessarily skewed, from someone apparently full of personal charm and good looks (never to be discounted, often dangerously employed). One need only see how the personal charm of all those Shi’as in exile, Ahmad Chalabi, Kanan Makiya, Rend al-Rahim Francke, not to mention Paul Wolfowitz’s close friend, helped present a misleading view of Iraq. They sold to the Bush Administration an Iraq which would be eternally grateful to its American liberators, an Iraq that within months of the toppling of the old regime would be back on its feet, still celebrating in Baghdad its liberation, with that celebration “making the liberation of Kabul look like a funeral procession” — as Bernard Lewis is reported to have assured others in Washington.
Think of the personal charm, those liquid brown eyes, of that nice Pakistani lady who shows up at the local elementary school to teach the students “about Islam.” She is armed with a prayer rug, and pretty postcards of mosques, including of course the Mosque of Omar, and her beautiful exotic dress, and those wonderful exotic foods she brings, the chicken with pita, and the honeyed pastries, which the children are all so looking forward to — mmm…it all smells so good — after her talk, about Ramadan, and Iftar dinners, and how little Muslim boys and girls obey their parents and pray and are deeply devout just like, exactly like, little Christian boys and girls, so what’s there to worry about? What indeed?
And think of the office with the Muslim colleague who is so friendly, so nice, who always inquires after your wife or husband or children, who seems so much warmer than your fellow, non-Muslim, harried thoroughly Western workers. What a relief to have such a nice guy in the office. Just as long, of course, as you carefully stay off the subject of Islam, or allow him to do all the talking about it, and never once dare to inject a note of doubt or wariness or criticism. For if you do, suddenly quite a different aspect of that same colleague, once so warm, so trustworthy, may be seen, perhaps just in a glimpse, when the deepest matters are touched.
Of course one is perfectly justified in worrying about this kind of influence. For if the reports are to be believed, Huma Abedin remains, despite living in the West, a “deeply conservative” Muslim. We are entitled to assume, therefore, that she still regards the Qur’an as the uncreated and immutable Word of God. And we are entitled to consult that “Word of God” to find out what she believes. And that includes 9.5, and 9.29, and another hundred deeply disturbing and hate-filled verses. We are entitled to assume that she is familiar with the most “authentic” Hadith in the most authoritative collections. We are entitled to assume that she regards Muhammad as exemplary, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, and that therefore she finds all of his behavior not only beyond criticism, but to be taken as a model: little Aisha, and the murders of Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak, the decapitation of the 600-900 bound prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, the attack on the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis, and so on.
Is this close aide, this aide-de-camp, who may or may not be closer and more intimate with Hillary Clinton than anyone else on earth, really a deep admirer of that Muhammad? Is she a deep believer in the Qur’an, and therefore a supporter of the Shari’a, desirous naturally of removing all barriers to the spread of the faith of which she is not only an adherent by birth (born into it through no fault of her own), but apparently by conviction? She is, furthermore, the daughter of a Muslim preacher who went to Saudi Arabia, the place where the most rigorous and unmediated Islam is put into practice, and enforced at every level.
We have a right to know. And Huma Abedin, and her great and good friend, have a duty to tell us. With no counter-attacks, none of that manufactured indignation, none of that “I won’t dignify such scurrilous rumors” or “leave her alone, it’s her private life.” In this case, Huma’s friend is running for President. In this case, she wishes to be in control of the American government when war is being made on that government, and its people, and on Infidels everywhere, by Muslims acting in the name of Islam. And they are not doing so because they are “extremists,” but because they have chosen to use the instrument of warfare, or terror, rather than to use the instruments of Da’wa, and the Money Weapon, and demographic conquest that are being employed by tens or hundreds of millions of other Muslims.
This has to be cleared up. What does this woman so close to Hillary Clinton believe? And what does Hillary Clinton now believe, or allow herself to believe because she wishes to, because it makes her able to justify, or reconcile, her personal life and her political life? Or does she think there is nothing to worry about, or that no one has a right to raise this issue?
She may regard herself — there have been many signs of it — or she may think others should regard her, as existing serenely above all the normal considerations and influences that others, mere mortals, are subject to. Her o’erweening ambition, she may think, is her only fault, and to her it is not a fault.
Well, she’s wrong. We need to know. What does Huma Abedin think about the doctrine and practice of Islam? What would Huma Abedin like to see happen in the Lands of the Infidels? And what has Hillary Clinton learned, or think she has learned, about Islam and Muslims, through her close friendship and daily proximity to Huma Abedin?
Ordinarily the sex life of politicians, like the sex life of newts, ought not to be a matter of public knowledge or interest. What Jacques Chirac did or does with his poules de luxe is not important, except that in his case the requirement of simultaneous ministrations from three girls implies a very large bill at the end, and where does Jacques Chirac get all that money, if not from such briefcases such as that brought to him by the late Rafik Hariri on his monthly trips for “private meetings” with Chirac, the contents of which were never clearly explained? So there was a reason for puzzlement and worry, as there is now.
And the business of lesbianism need not be brought into the discussion at all. That is not the main thing. That this “deeply conservative” Muslim is her constant companion and aide is enough for alarms to go off. That is more than enough.
The issue will, of course, not be raised by any of her Democratic rivals. That would be to admit that there is a problem with Islam, and they can’t do that.
Similarly, none of them has made the slightest fuss over the Vinod-Gupta connection, which has nothing to do with Islam but everything to do with the vast sums greedily taken in by Bill Clinton (and to a much lesser extent Hillary, who knew she had to curb her greed and let him do the personal fundraising for the family) since he left office, including some huge sum — $3 million I think, or was it $30 million? — from Gupta as payment on a contract for…for what?
Why won’t any of those Democratic candidates, or any of the Republicans, raise the matter of the Clintons and money, their delight in billionaires, their circle of friends limited to the very rich, who can and do help them in the most obvious way? Because those candidates are all similarly tainted, though sometimes to a lesser degree: McCain has his heiress wife, and Romney has his $500 million which he thinks he “deserved” but which most of us would say no one “deserves” for a few decades of Bain & Co. consulting, Edwards made $60 million as a tort lawyer — does he think those fees are about right? And they all want to continue to have the opportunity, at some point, to speechify and pocket million-dollar fees — you never know when the Kuwaitis or Qataris are going to invite you to give a speech, do you? — or serve on corporate boards, or receive the financial tribute of such disinterested admirers as Mr. Gupta was of the Clintons.
They are all in the same galere, potentially pocketing the same sky-high amounts of dough. They won’t take up such matters or use them against Hillary Clinton in this case, because the topic of political figures and money, not to their campaigns (oh, that can be talked about) but to them personally, makes them nervous. It does so especially when there is any hint of popular indignation or resentment of the vast sums that these political figures, especially “out of public service,” can receive as they exploit the fame and contacts they acquired during those “years of public service” to maximum personal advantage.