CAIR's Nihad Awad teaches Bush the proper way of donning a hijab.

Like Tony Blair's nomination a few months back, we realize that George W. Bush is a controversial choice for Dhimwit of the Month.  After all, while his predecessors threw out false bravado and an occasional limp-wristed cruise missile strike, this President has actually racked up dead terrorists.

But, in addition to diligently fighting Islamic terror abroad, Bush has paradoxically become Islam's biggest cheerleader in the States.  From the moment that he informed the world that Islam is a "religion of peace," two days after 3,000 Americans were massacred in the name of Allah, to his most recent genuflection to Muslim leaders at a White House Ramadan dinner, the President has been a tireless promoter of the threadbare clich? that Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terror.

Bush?s PR campaign on behalf of the ?Religion of Peace? was in full swing by September 20^th, 2001.  As bodies were still being pulled from the smoldering ruins at Ground Zero, the President stood before Congress and assured us that the Islam?s teachings are ?good and peaceful? and that not only do ?those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah,? but they are ?traitors? and ?hijackers? as well.

That December, the President included Islam prominently in the holiday festivities, even reading Allah?s praises to a group of gathered children at a traditional recital. 

By 2007, Imam Bush was standing shoeless in an Islamic center, telling Muslims that he would help them ?reclaim? their faith from terrorists.  Three senior female members of his staff wore hijabs to the event, as CAIR looked on.

A few months earlier, CAIR voiced objection to Bush?s use of the terms ?Islamic terrorism? and even ?Islamic fascism? to describe the more radical elements of Islam.  The President of the United States then dutifully adjusted his vocabulary so as not to step on the Hamas supporter's toes. 

In October 2007, the President invited Muslim leaders to the White House for Iftar (Ramadan dinner).  During the event he gave an interview to al-Arabiya in which he insisted that people of all religions pray to the same god (we aren't sure how Hindus fit in).  He even told the Muslim world that terrorism also plagues Christianity, using the Oklahoma City bombing as an [erroneous] example (Timothy McVeigh was an atheist and never cited religion as a motive).

Bush has even discouraged Congress from recognizing the genocide of 1.5 million Christian Armenians, because doing so offends the Turks ? who perpetrated the Muslim holocaust in the 1910?s.  To put this in perspective, consider that his antagonist on this issue is none other than our April of 2007 Dhimwit honoree, Nancy Pelosi!

Quite frankly, Islam could hardly have a greater friend in the Oval Office than George Bush.  If what the President says about Islam is even remotely true, and it were indeed a religion of peace with which terrorism has no association, then Bush would be one of the planet?s most popular infidels for making this distinction under the most trying of circumstances.

Instead, the President is hated and reviled in the Islamic world.  He is burned in effigy and has lower approval ratings among Muslims than Osama bin Laden.  Even his effort to liberate Iraqis is bizarrely interpreted as an attempt to destroy Islam.

CAIR, which has had the leader of the free world inexplicably wrapped around its finger, turns against him at every opportunity by openly supporting political opponents and blasting the Bush Administration in a string of public statements.  The organization famously left the President twisting in the wind In March of 2006, when he tried to counter explicit anti-Arab demagoguery raised against the ?Dubai ports deal? by Democrats.  CAIR stayed uncharacteristically quiet during the matter, refusing to side openly with Bush.

So, how can a man who has done more than anyone in America to raise the legitimacy of Islam also be demonized as Islam?s greatest enemy?

Well, obviously it is because Bush is dead wrong about the religion.  As much as he wants to believe that Muslims are just like Baptists in burqas, the truth is that Islam is quite different from other faiths.

In the first place, Islam has very little regard for those outside the religion.  The Qur?an is very explicit in its low opinion of non-believers and in Allah?s hatred for them.  Although Bush enjoys telling Muslims how much he appreciates their respect for universal values, he doesn?t seem to notice that he is merely projecting his own ideals onto a skeptical audience with a much different moral perspective.

For example, although Muslims may engage in Jihad on several (somewhat ambiguous) pretexts, it is absolutely against Islam for a non-Muslim to fight a Muslim, even if it is in self-defense.  This is the primary reason why the Islamic world has never been supportive of Bush?s war on the radicals who have supposedly ?hijacked? their faith, yet the President seems to have completely missed this very basic premise of the religion that he extols.

If George Bush were to stop projecting his personal standards onto Muslims, and start paying attention, then he might realize just how deeply rooted terrorism is within Islam and why Muslims are less than enthusiastic in the fight against it.  Killing in the name of Allah isn?t a recent phenomenon.  It first began when Muhammad exhorted his followers to plunder merchant caravans and kill innocent Arabians who had the bad fortune of not being Muslim. 

The President?s na?ve optimism is cute, but it may also be getting Americans killed, particularly in Iraq, where Bush gambled heavily on Islam and lost.  The lesson being learned there is that the Muslim world hates non-believers more than it cares about itself.  Americans are blamed for the very terror attacks that they are trying to prevent and the death of Iraqis that they are literally spilling their own blood to save.

While it is true that decent Muslim Americans don?t deserve to have their religion denigrated by their country?s President, it is still possible to be sensitive to their feelings without evangelizing on behalf of the enemy.  How far would Reagan have gotten if he had praised Marxism and bemoaned its ?hijacking? by Communist radicals?

Telling Muslims what they want to hear isn't helping either George Bush or his country.  The President merely perpetuates dangerous misconceptions about Islam when he should be challenging them.

See Also: Other "Bushisms" on Islam.

Bishop "Tiny" Muskens... (and we're pretty sure that his are quite small).

A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands suggests that, in order to please Muslims,  we all start calling God, "Allah."  (Hmmm... let's just say that this month's pick wasn't too hard to come up with).

Hey, while we're on the subject, do you know what would really please Muslims?  If we started calling ourselves "dhimmis" and tacked the jizya onto our monthly Visa bill.  That might buy us about ten years of goodwill before the protests start up again.

According to the good Bishop, changing the name of God to Allah is a terrific way to generate "greater understanding and acceptance of Muslims."  Apparently, he hasn't noticed that we aren't the ones with the tolerance problem.

Are there any Muslim countries that allow an influx of non-Muslims to immigrate and build houses of worship, preach their religion on street corners and even denounce their new government?  Because if there aren't, then perhaps it's best to wait until the Muslim world catches up to the West before racing further down the road to social extinction.

Each year at least 10,000 people lose their lives in terror attacks committed explicitly in the name of Islam, while violence from other religions hovers at around zero.  So, as far as "understanding and acceptance" goes, its probably time that the rest of us started demanding some, rather than use our time dreaming up new ways to pacify Muslim peevishness. 

Naturally, the move to de-Christianize Christianity delighted CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper, who declared that God and Allah were the same person, "There not a theological leap to make on the part of Christians," he informed Fox News. 

Well in that case, Ibrahim, why don't you and your buddies start calling Allah "Jesus?"  Or is it that Islam only appreciates compromise when the kafirs are the ones doing it?

In the real world, there is an enormous difference between God and Allah.  Just ask the Korean Christians being held by the Taliban...  those who haven't been killed yet, anyway.

Frankly, we've said more than we intended to here about the good Bishop.  Much of our own thunder on this issue was taken by others, who were quicker to comment:

In response to every idiotic claim that has been heard in America over the last year that equivocated Islamic law - and the rest of the world:

The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

Obama plays the wrong card, sounds like Al Sharpton.  Read it here.

WHEN YOU'RE TEN points behind in the polls, less than two months away from the first presidential primaries, and African American Democrats are divided between you and the front-runner, what is the easiest way to narrow that gap?

Apparently, if you're Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), you play the race card.

And that's exactly what he's done with his latest salvo against Hans von Spakovsky, the Bush administration's nominee to the Federal Election Commission. Recently, Sen. Obama published an inflammatory essay in the Chicago Defender, a weekly newspaper serving Chicago's black community, blasting von Spakovsky for undermining voting rights and creating roadblocks for minority voters.

Unless you follow election law issues, you probably have not heard of von Spakovsky until recently. He has served without any controversy on the FEC since January 2006 as a recess appointee. As former Commissioner Bradley Smith and other observers have noted, his FEC career has "been tremendously successful." But it's not his work on the FEC that has Sen. Obama and others on the left so lathered up, but rather, his prior tenure as a career lawyer in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, where he worked on voting rights issues. Of course, the FEC has nothing to do with enforcing the Voting Rights Act, but you might not know this if you listen only to Sen. Obama and other von Spakovsky detractors.

So, to understand the real von Spakovsky controversy, you can't begin with Obama's op-ed. For that, a much neglected story needs