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The Salt Lake Tribune – November 28, 2007
Romney rules out appointing Muslim to cabinet
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
U.S. Muslims are charging Mitt Romney with hypocrisy for refusing to consider appointing an Islamic believer to his Cabinet if he is elected president.
At a fundraiser earlier this month in Las Vegas, Pakistani financier Mansoor Ijaz asked Mitt Romney whether he would "consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his Cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that 'jihadism' is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today."
According to an opinion piece Ijaz wrote in The Christian Science Monitor, Romney replied, " . . . based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage of] our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Now U.S. Muslim leaders have called for a meeting with Romney, and commentators are pointing out how often Romney claims religious discrimination against him due to his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Muslims claim up to 7 million members of their faith in the U.S. compared with 5.5 million members claimed by the LDS Church.
Using Romney's logic about Muslims, his own father should never have been named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. In 1969, when George Romney joined Richard Nixon's cabinet, the LDS Church had only 2,807,456 members worldwide and fewer in the U.S.
It would also have eliminated LDS apostle Ezra Taft Benson, who served as Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture from 1953 to 1961, at a time when Mormonism had fewer than 1.3 million adherents worldwide.
Many Muslims already had a problem with Romney, said Ibrahim Hooper, executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C. He cited Romney's 2005 proposal to wiretap U.S. mosques and his Iowa campaign ad entitled "Jihad," which seems to "legitimize claims by terrorists that they are fighting on behalf of Islam."
Romney has worked hard to clarify what he meant by his answer.
On CBS on Tuesday, Romney claimed what he actually said was: "No, I don't think you have to have a Muslim in the Cabinet to be able to take on radical jihad any more than during the World War II we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan."
He told CNN's "Situation Room" Monday that "to fill spots based on checking off boxes of various ethnic groups is really a very inappropriate way to think about how we staff positions."
"His clarification does not go far enough," Ibrahim Hooper said Tuesday in a phone interview. "It leaves unanswered questions best resolved by a meeting with Muslim leaders."
Romney's comment disappointed Utah Muslims who have watched him try to fend off perceived religious bigotry many of them face as well.
"Governor Romney is seeking to head the executive branch of our country and has been running his campaign in the face of a fury of claims against his personal beliefs as a Mormon. In his own defense, he has quoted Article 6, Section 3 of the constitution, which clearly stipulates: ' . . . no test of religion shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust . . . ' " said Tarek Nosseir, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt Lake.
"Governor Romney's logic is truly ironic, if we were to apply it, no Mormon would hold any public office as they only represent approximately 1 percent of the population of this country."
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_7577685
Arab American Institute – November 28, 2007
Romney's Macaca Moment
Yesterday's Christian Science Monitor published an op-ed in which the author accused Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of refusing to place a Muslim American in a national security cabinet position, saying "...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Since the article's publication, Romney has sought to clarify his comments, saying:
His question was did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet to be able to confront radical Jihad and would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet and I said, 'No, I don't think that you have to have a Muslim in the Cabinet to be able to take on radical Jihad anymore than during the Second World War we needed to have a Japanese-American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature.' I just rejected that argument number one, and then number two, I point out that people who would be part of my Cabinet is something that I really haven't given a lot of thought to at this point, but I don't have boxes that I check off as to their ethnicity. It's not that I have to have a certain number of each different ethnic group; instead I would choose people based upon their merits and their capabilities.
Reporter: So you would be open to having a Muslim person....
Gov. Romney: I'm open to having people of any faith and ethnic group, but they would be selected based upon their capacity and their capabilities and the values and skills that they could bring to the administration. But I don't choose people based upon checking off a box.
Aside from the obvious hypocrisy of a presidential candidate from a minority religion devaluing the public service of members of another minority religion, this controversy is not a matter of "quotas" or "box checking." It displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the contribution that ethnic and religious communities can make during a time of international conflict and mistakenly implies that the United States is at war with the Muslim world.
In referring to the Japanese American community in World War II, Romney misses the point. He's right that we did not include a Japanese American in the cabinet, instead we shamefully interned an entire community of American citizens. Romney's comments ignore the very substantial contributions made by Japanese Americans to the U.S. war effort, both in the European and Pacific theaters as soldiers, intelligence officers, and translators. In today's debate, Arab and Muslim Americans often suffer similar denigration of their military and public service.
The history of the Arab American community has been one of exclusion, but like the Japanese American community during World War II, Arab Americans today have a role to play that should be recognized. The controversy surrounding Governor Romney's alleged remarks brings to the forefront of the national debate a question that all presidential candidates should answer:
If elected president, will you utilize one of America's most valuable assets in securing our national security and foreign policy interests--the talents and contributions of the Arab and Muslim American communities--or will you allow the politics of exclusion to prevent this community from contributing to the welfare of our country?
MPAC comment– November 29, 2007
Romney's fear of the 'M-word'
Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's comments earlier this week in which he ruled out the possibility of hiring a Muslim to a Cabinet level position are just the latest in a disappointing and offensive track record among presidential hopefuls.
"Not only are Mr. Romney's comments prejudicial rather than presidential in their tone, but they violate the equal opportunity that is supposed to be afforded to all Americans," said MPAC Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati. "The most qualified person should be appointed, regardless of race, religion or gender. We would assume that Mr. Romney would agree with that as a Mormon running for President."
As reported by columnist Mansoor Ijaz in the Christian Science Monitor, Romney said, "Based on the numbers of American Muslims who live in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslim advisers could serve at lower levels of my administration."
It's time for all presidential candidates to condemn Islamophobia in the U.S. presidential campaigns. It is also time to end the hypocrisy, whereby these candidates solicit the financial support of Muslim Americans in private gatherings but fail to discuss the positive contributions of Muslim Americans in their public appearances.
Mr. Romney is certainly not the first candidate to express concern about Muslim Americans participation in the political process or in public life. Last month, John McCain (R-AZ) told BeliefNet.com that the prospect of a Muslim in the White House makes him "uncomfortable". In September, Rudy Guiliani's (R-NY) political advisor Congressman Peter King (R-NY) said "unfortunately, there are too many mosques in this country" and accused Muslim Americans of not fully cooperating with law enforcement.
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