A once-ardent Muslim critic of President George W. Bush now argues his assertion that America 's war is against
"evil . . . not against Islam" stands in stark contrast to the current "out of sync" GOP White House contenders.
In a commentary for
The New York Times posted Monday, Mehdi Hasan, the host of the Al Jazeera English show "UpFront," says Bush's post-9/11 comments seem "distant, if not improbable, amid the miasma of anti-Muslim hate and fearmongering fostered by the Republican candidates for president."
"I never thought I
'd say it, but now I long for the Republican Party of George W. Bush," he writes.
Hasan argues though he opposed the Bush administration's 2003 Iraq invasion, "at home [Bush] courted Muslim-American voters and refused to lazily conflate Islam with terrorism."
Hasan decries the
claim of Donald Trump that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City, N.J., celebrated the 9/11 fall of the Twin Towers, and his support of a
Muslim registry — a position on which he later backtracked — as well as remarks of retired pediatric neurosurgeon
Ben Carson that compared some Syrian refugees to "rabid dogs."
But he also hit Jeb Bush for saying the nation should "focus on" Christian refugees from Syria, and Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio's remarks to Fox News the government should be "closing down anyplace — whether it's a cafe, a diner, an internet site — anyplace where radicals are being inspired."
He also castigated Kentucky
Sen. Rand Paul's call for "heightened scrutiny" of Muslim immigrants, Texas
Sen. Ted Cruz's claim that Shariah law is an "enormous problem" in America, former Arkansas
Gov. Mike Huckabee's charge that Islam "promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet," and Ohio Gov. John Kasich's suggestion of a federal agency to
foster Judeo-Christian Western values.
"It is important to recognize how out of sync such views are with the Republican Party's historical record," Hasan writes, noting that in 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first sitting president to speak at an American mosque.
And in 1974, he writes, "Gerald R. Ford became the first president to send an official message to Muslim-Americans for Eid al-Fitr," the festival ending Ramadan, saying America had been "greatly enhanced" by Muslim-Americans.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated America's first Muslim ambassador, the convert Robert Dickson Crane, and in 2002 Bush became the first president to visit an American mosque on Eid.
"[Bush] and advisers like Karl Rove and Michael Gerson understood that demonizing Muslims and depicting Islam as 'the enemy' not only fueled al-Qaida's narrative but also hurt their party's electoral prospects," Hasan writes.
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