Super Tuesday has come and gone, and (drumroll please)… nothing really changed. Oh. Well, today Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, so that will save a little time, and as much as it hurts me to do so, I’m letting go of Ron Paul, as well. Realistically speaking, his candidacy is as dead as the Constitution.

This time we’re going to look at the positions of the candidates on Islam. As I’ve said many times in this forum, most American politicians demonstrate a fundamental (no pun intended) misunderstanding of the teachings of the Qur’an, simply regurgitating the latest platitudes the 24 hour new stations are offering about the “religion of peace.” Let’s see how the candidates for the highest office in the land stack up on this critical issue.

Clinton: In 1996, the White House hosted a celebration of Eid ul-Fitr with the American Muslim Council. Then first lady Hillary Clinton accepted the gift of two Qur’ans, one for her and one for her husband. She said that Chelsea already had one and had taught her and Bill a good deal of what they knew about Islam. That same year, she said to the L.A. Times that Islam was “a guide and pillar of stability for many of our people” (source) and talked to the Chicago Sun-Times about Islam’s “universal values – love of family and community, mutual respect, education, and the deepest yearning of all – to live in peace.” (source)

As First Lady, Hillary routinely hosted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the American Muslim Council and the American Muslim Alliance at the White House. All of these groups have been linked to terrorism and/or calls for the destruction if Israel. (source)

Over the years, Clinton has received numerous campaign donations from radical Muslim groups, but to the best of my knowledge, she has returned all such donations.

I’d love to offer something more current, but she doesn’t say much about Islam these days.

Huckabee: I’m going to let Mike Huckabee’s own words speak for him.

“We [...] have to recognize there is a real threat to us with radical Islamic Jihadism. [...] Anybody who will kill their only children to get at you will kill your children, too. [...] Anybody who gets in the way of not being a part of establishing this theocratic utopia on earth is subjected to being annihilated. [...] Understand that the heart of this movement goes all the way back to the seventh century. [...] The nonsense that I hear is that if we leave them alone, they leave us alone. That’s just a deadly recipe.” (source)

“The Administration has never done an adequate job explaining the theology and ideology behind Islamic terror, never done an adequate job of convincing us of their ruthless fanaticism. The first rule of war is “Know your enemy,” and most Americans don’t. [...] Very few Americans are familiar with the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian radical executed in 1966, and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose call to active jihad, influenced bin Laden and the rise of Al Qaeda. [...] Qutb raged against the decadence and sin he saw around him and sought to restore what he considered the “pure” Islam of the seventh century. [...] To him, the only answer was a return to a theocratic caliphate without national borders, and he saw nothing decadent or sinful in murder to achieve that end.” (source)

Huckabee really gets it. I guess it takes a religious fanatic to recognize religious fanaticism in others. It’s a shame I’d rather chew off my right arm than vote for him.

McCain: John McCain has drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid…

“I admire Islam. I think that there’s a lot of good principles in it. [...] These forces of evil have perverted what’s basically an honorable religion.” (source)

…and would rather blame the Internet than the Qur’an.

“The transcendant challenge of the 21st century is the challenge of radical Islamic extremism. [...] The fact is that everywhere in the world, thanks to cyberspace[...] you’re seeing the spread of this radical Islamic extremism in a very dangerous way.” (source)

All the other quotes I found echo the same PC nonsense.

Obama: Barack Obama’s religious background has been the subject of much debate. His account is that he has never practiced Islam. There are reports from people who knew him as a child in Indonesia that he attended Muslim religious classes and went to mosque for Friday prayers with his stepfather. I personally believe that he is truly a Christian, as he says, but the jury is still out on some of the evidence that has been presented. There’s plenty to read on that elsewhere. If you have any good links on either side of this issue, please put them in the comments section.

As for his position on Islam, I can’t find any meaningful statements he has made on the issue. That could be because any Google search on the relevant keywords turns up only pages accusing him of being a Muslim or offering evidence that he’s not, but come to think of it, I never remember him talking about it in a debate.

~I AM~