One wonders what Al Jazeera will make of this

July 19, 2005

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) has developed a well-deserved reputation for being something of a loose cannon. His tirades against immigrants, for example, make Tancredo the easy winner of the Xenophobe of the Year award, every year.

And while I realize there are different less stringent standards for Republicans who make controversial comments, I think Tancredo may have finally crossed the line this time.

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could “take out” Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tom Tancredo made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.

Talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

“Well, what if you said something like – if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites,” Tancredo answered.

When the host asked if he was talking about destroying Mecca, Tancredo said, “Yeah.”

Let’s apply the conservative standard, as recently articulated, to this one. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the right insisted, is a traitor to his country because he criticized U.S. torture policies, which in turn could be broadcast on Al Jazeera, which in turn puts American soldiers in “greater danger.” In other words, Muslims will be outraged by American policies if we talk about them, and that outrage will lead to violence. Got it.

And how, exactly, will Al Jazeera viewers respond when they learn than a member of Congress, with presidential aspirations, from the president’s own political party, is talking openly about the possibility of destroying the most sacred of Islamic holy sites? Do you suppose that it will help keep our men and women in uniform safe?

I’m still waiting for Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, and the rest of our Republican friends to denounce Tancredo and use the same level of vitriol towards him that they use to smear Dick Durbin. It’ll be any minute now, right?

CB, you had it right the first time: there are “different” rules for the Rethugs, not “less stingent” ones. At least so far with BushCo, the media, and by extension the American public, has not applied the same rules to Bush and his minions that they did to Clinton — not even close — nor to Members of Congress since 1994 than were applied to Democratic political transgressors.

LONG VERSION: UNTIL Sensenbrenner is sanctioned by the House, UNTIL DeLay is removed from the House, UNTIL Bush is investigated and impeached by the House, UNTIL the House Rules Committee is prevented from barring Dems from Conference Committee meetings, UNTIL Rush is banned from the Armed Forces Radio Network, UNTIL government bought-and-paid-for journalism tactics are banned, UNTIL the Senate holds Haliburton and Rumsfeld and others in Contempt of Congress, UNTIL Sen. Roberts holds Part II of the SSCI Hearings on the administration’s manipulation of inttelligence to get us into the Iraq war, UNTIL fraud-proof election mechanics is approved in every national, state, and local election, and …. UNTIL THEN, different rules apply.

SHORT VERSION: IOKIYAR

  • Even IOKIYAR has gone out of date with this crowd. It’s only okay if you’re the right kind of Republican … one beholden to Cheney and frightened of Rove.

  • Tom needs to learn that things don’t always turn out the way you planned. His sweet revenge of nuking Mecaa would come back and bite all of us in the ass, but then take a look at the deficit and its easy to tell that seeing beyond their own personal interests isn’t a Republican strength.

    Take for instance our mission to provide freedom for Iraq (after the WMD MO panned out). Revisions to the Iraqi constitutions are now going to limited women’s freedoms in Iraq. I guess they don’t hate OUR freedoms, they hate WOMEN’S freedoms. Great, so American women soldiers died and were maimed so women in another part of the world can be less free rather than more free. Plus, while Saddam admitedly had his “rape rooms,” it’s now big business to kidnap women and sell them into slavery in Iraq. 24,865 civilians have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 – a rate of 34 people a day. One in 10 of those killed was aged under 18 and 51 were babies. One in 1,000 of Iraq’s 25 million population has died in the war. Yeah Tom, nuking Islamic holy sites will end all of this and the folks doing all the bombings will just give up. Simple solutions for simple people.

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