Argh

Forget Rosie and Donald Trump, there's a much more interesting (and slightly more important) feud going on between Keith Ellison and Virgil Goode. In case you don't remember, Ellison decided, when pressed, that he wanted to swear his MOCK oath on the Koran (most members of Congress actually don't swear on anything, they just raise their hand. Bibles, Korans, and banana peels are brought in for the mock ceremony and are mainly symbolic photo-ops, making this whole issue particularly inane). Dennis Prager heard about it and got his kosher panties (self-hekshered, no doubt) in a major twist, though you'd never know it from the way the Reps are spinning it.

Enter Virgil Goode, whose much-quoted letter is actually even more bizarre the more of it you read.

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand.

How nice for you. Now, is this a personal religious decision, or are you turning yourself into an exhibitionist in the hope that this will help you with your constituents? And did we get a new holiday when I was napping? Is there Swearing-In-Day cake? And are you allowed to have flavors other than vanilla?

I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way.

Hey, what a co-winky-dink! I bet a bunch of Jews in office don't "subscribe" (?) to using the New Testament. And let's not even go into the two new Buddhists. I don't know how they slipped by ol'Eagle-Eye Goode, but clearly we need to start screening people better before we allow them to run for government. Hey, what about Catholics or Orthodox Christians? They should check before they swear that they're using the *right* Bible- got to have that Apocrypha. And if it's not written in Latin (or Cyrillic), I don't think it should count. Just a personal preference.

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district

Damn you, representative democracy! How many more Bibles have to be not-used before we wake up?

if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

Just for those keeping score: Ellison isn't Arabic, he's a black convert from Detroit whose family has been in this country about 150 years longer than mine. And holy crap, more Muslims swearing on their holy book? Man, it's almost enough to make you want to ban the whole mock swearing in ceremony altogether. Or maybe that's just me.

And just what is the Goode position on immigration, you ask? Apparently, it's stopping "illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."

That's funny, I thought most of the illegal immigrants were Mexicans, who, incidentally, are largely religious Catholics. Hey Virg, help me out here. Is this about illegal immigrants, xenophobic Nativism, or actually giving a rat's ass what people fake-swear on in front of the news cameras?

I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

Jesus Godamn Vishnu Christ, Virg, you're really wrapping a lot of bullcrap into this letter. If I had to represent it in math terms, I might choose something pithy like, say, 50 pounds into a 5 pound bag (or maybe one of those padded envelopes you get at the post office). So let's get this straight: the election of an American Muslim to Congress who wants to use his own book is bad and antithetical to American values- and the way to deal with this is to stop allowing Muslim IMMIGRANTS into the US. And while we're at it, let's stop illegal immigration (Mexicans), and throw something in there about protecting American resources- which I guess legal immigrants shouldn't be allowed to have access to unless they're WASPs. Or at least not rag-heads. Yeah, that's totally Constitutional.

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office.

Don't feel bad, no one ever gave the Capitol major points for imaginative decorating.

A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”

So, does that mean that as long as the 5th doesn't have (enough) Muslims in it, you won't have the Koran there, or is it that as long as the 5th has you, the office won't have the Koran? And furthermore- who gives a crap?!?

More on Goode here. I particularly like how he's convinced that barring the doors to Muslims will preclude more Muslims getting elected to Congress. Someone should explain the concept of proselitizing to him. And hey, there are a lot more Jews in Congress than Muslims- maybe we should start denying visas to Israeli ex-pats and Jews from the former Soviet Union.

More on the Prager-Ellison-Goode mental masturbation here. I have to say, I might have to change my opinions of Ed Koch. Anyone who calls Prager a schmuck is all right by me. Money-quote right here (though unclear how accurate):

"The New Testament is not my Bible but it is America's Bible," he said, noting that Jewish officeholders who had insisted on the Hebrew Bible were "secularists" who didn't believe what was in it anyway.

Hmm. Maybe we should ask this guy.


Oh, and speaking of anti-Muslim hysteria, check out Debbie Schlussel's mind-turd on Obama. She blames ol' Barak for how some Muslims might perceive him:

In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

Hey, all the better for us- maybe he can serve as a mediator between us and, I don't know, all the Muslims we seem to keep pissing off. Or, even better, he could get the drop on all these hypothetical Muslims Schlussel thinks would be supposedly sympathetic to him.

But wait, there's more!

Obama went to a Muslim school for two years in Indonesia. His mother, Anna, married an Indonesian man (likely another Muslim, as Indonesia is Muslim-dominated and has the largest Islamic population in the world).

What difference does it make? Especially since Obama spent "two years in a Muslim school and two years in a Catholic one"? Exactly what is the issue here? Obama's supposed religious education? Indoctrination? How many Muslims are there in Hawaii, Debbie? Should we start interviewing Obama's old neighbors to see if he was part of some nefarious pre-teen terrorist cell? Where the hell are you going with this?

And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister.

That BASTARD!

Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians.

My family's from Poland and the Ukraine. I can find those countries interesting and take pride in my heritage and history without supporting what those governments do (hint, hint).

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?

Hey Deb, imagine if anybody said this about a Congressman of Jewish origins: Even if "Alberto Kahane" identifies as a Christian, and despised the behavior of his great-uncle Meir, is a man who Jews think is Jewish, who feels a psychological need to prove himself to his absent Jewish great-uncle, and moving in the direction of his father's heritage (I saw him eating a blintz! And is that a Jewish National Fund tzedaka box in his office?) really a person we want in office? God forbid he take a trip to Israel or something.

You'd get your ass handed to you, and rightfully so. We don't get to disqualify people based solely on who their parents were (not that you've demonstrated anything actually objectionable in Obama's heritage in the first place). If that's an issue for the voters, fine- but this column is just as much a litmus test as Prager's.

So buzz off Debbie. I mean, Dumb-ass.

P.S.

And regarding that whole, "once a Muslim always a Muslim"- does that mean we shouldn't let Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig back to work? What if they run for office? After all, Muslims still see them as Muslims, right? If anything, Centanni is less trustworthy than Obama- he ACTUALLY (fake) converted, Obama was just (sort of) born into this (maybe).

Let's start a petition!

(Hat tip: DovBear)