Some people just don’t know when to quit. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) raised more than a few eyebrows a couple of weeks ago when he publicly suggested bombing Mecca in the event of a terrorist nuclear strike in the U.S.
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.”
This week, Tancredo went on Fox News to set the record straight.
“I didn’t say nuke anything. I just said ‘take out their holy sites.'”
Yeah, that’s much better. When Al Jazeera viewers hear that a member of Congress, with presidential aspirations, from the president’s own political party, is talking openly “taking out” the most sacred of Islamic holy sites, I’m sure they’ll take comfort in knowing that he wasn’t specifically referring to nuclear bombs.