Duncan Hunter, a Republican Congressman, and a presidential candidate for 2008, recently appointed a man named Dr. Henry Jordan ("DHJ") as his South Carolina campaign co-chair. In 1997, through Roger Ailes we learn, that DHJ made the following statement:

"Screw the Buddhists and kill the Muslims," Dr. Henry Jordan said during the board's finance and legislative committee meeting. "And put that in the minutes," he added.

The remarks made Tuesday were expunged from the written minutes, but were recorded on tape. The (Columbia) State obtained the tape under the Freedom of Information Act.

Jordan, a surgeon who failed in a bid to get the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 1994, said Thursday he thought the meeting was over and members were engaged in private conversation.

Bloggers all across -- I want to say "the board" but will have to settle for "liberal blogosphere" -- have condemned DHJ quite resoundly. Pastor Dan at Streeprophets finds that making hateful comments in private is as reprehensible as making them publicly. A Buddhist Blogger uncovered some Christian supremacist comments by DHJ, in which he states that the US was founded "to worship and glorify Jesus Christ." Both the Carpetbagger and the Liberal OC compare this guy's hiring by a presidential candidate with the Edwards campaign who hired a blogger that had used the word "Christofascist" and taken a lot of abuse at the hands of the conservatives. Emboldened reveals that DHJ has called a majority of Americans "stupid." Then from a commentator at kos we learn that DHJ is actually considered too liberal by many of his peers in South Carolina.

What we thus have is the picture of a man who is not only uncouth, but boorish, misanthropic, dastardly, distasteful, disgraceful, and a connoisseur of bigotry and hate.

The first thing we American Muslims have to say is that this one redneck quack doctor who professes to spout Christianity and represent Jesus, speaks only for himself and we should not assume that other Christians, or other redneck people, or other quack doctors, are so bigoted. I'm serious about not lumping all rednecks together; because technically, I am one (I rep the Dirty South).

The second thing we American Muslims have to say is that if we are not careful about the records of our politicians we will find many others who are either closet or out and out Islamophobes. This is unacceptable. Fortunately, as I have shown by the little survey above, we have a lot of friends, regular American friends, who hate Islamophobia as well, and are helping provide the monitoring. 

The third thing we American Muslims need to do is to contact Duncan Hunter and tell him how reprehensible it is that he is enabling people such as DHJ. I recommend we do this by contacting CAIR and not taking action ourselves. You can contact CAIR here. Non-Muslims can also contact CAIR to give them a good sense of how many non-Muslim American oppose this idiot.

The fourth thing we can do is to engage with right bloggers who support Duncan Hunter and ask them if they approve of the kind of statements DHJ has made. You can start here and here.

Ultimately, though, I leave you with something heartening I wrote when I was treated like crap by a bunch of Islamophobes at the Ann Coulter Chat Forum:

Hope, whether she is a scarlet cheecked harlot, as claimed Byron, or whether she lies in the heart of Pandora’s Box, as claimed Nietzsche, is the only remedy to the circles of sorrow in which mankind walks. I am in search of it, as much as you. Perhaps we will find it one day, blooming in asphalt in a broken alley somewhere and we’ll pluck off a few petals and put them in our pockets forever to perfume our hearts.

Update [2007-2-25 10:10:26 by Ali Eteraz]: Condemnation by California Citizen