Sympathy For The Devil After All

At least one major Muslim GOP donor is coming out to question why the GOP is openly attacking Islam.

I don't know if I'll be a Republican a year from now," says Seeme Hasan, who chairs the Hasan Family Foundation in Colorado, and has close ties to the Republican party leadership. Hasan's frustration with the GOP was evident, and not just over their public opposition to the construction of a Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan. "Every time a Muslim person becomes famous, they are viciously attacked," Hasan said.

"The past few years in the Republican party has been constant humiliation for Muslims," Hasan told TPM in an interview yesterday evening.

This I can understand.  She has every right to question the GOP's treatment of American Muslims.  But I have no sympathy for the second part of her argument.

Hasan continues to support the Republican party, including the GOP's Senate nominee from Colorado, Ken Buck, who also opposes the Cordoba project.

Interestingly, though, Hasan says at this point, Republican politicians have little choice but to join the GOP in opposing Cordoba House, and she understands that.

"I would tell him to go ahead and be against it. I did not support it when the top people started this. I did not support that," Hasan said. "Newt and Sarah Palin and all the others made it so the rest of the Republicans have no choice."

Vote Republican anyway, they're Islamophobes but they can't help themselves, they have no choice.  "He beats me officer but he's family and I love him."  Easy to be pretty angry at Hasan in this case.

But then Hasan makes an excellent point:

Though she called into question whether or not she'll remain in the Republican party, Hasan said that in any case it will be difficult, if not impossible, for her to be as supportive of the GOP's presidential nominee in 2012 as she was of George W. Bush in 2000. She says she has only one reason to suspect she'll put a great deal of effort into defeating Barack Obama: His policies are perhaps more anti-Muslim, Hasan says, as Bush's were. "It's like my son says, he's been more hawkish than Dick Cheney."

You mean the Obama continuation of Bush/Cheney's war policy and expanding it greatly in the Af-Pak region is causing blowback among American Muslims to the point where it's driving them into the arms of an abusive relationship with Islamophobic Republicans?

Hoocudddanode?  Sympathy for the Devil after all.

On the other hand, the alternative to Obama is people like Roy Blunt, who has no problems running on a virulent anti-Muslim campaign for Missouri's Senate seat.



Sympathy for the Devil indeed.  After all, when 48% of Americans say that First Amendment rights don't apply to Muslims, including 14% who say there should be no mosques in the United States period, it's hard to resist peer pressure.

And one-third of Americans think being a Muslim should prevent you from running for President.  But contributing a million bucks to a political party that wants to deny you all rights as an American is a great idea.