America's First Muslim President - Foreign Policy

Muslim Americans helped elect George W. Bush, but now they're leaving the Republican Party in droves. It didn't have to be this way. --- American Muslims voted two to one for George H.W. Bush in 1992. While they went for Bill Clinton by the same margin in 1996, they were brought back into the Republican fold in 2000 by George W. Bush.

And despite Bush's best efforts to separate terrorism from the faith of Islam, a growing chorus of conservative commentators was failing to make any such distinction. In October 2001, conservative pundit Ann Coulter was fired by the National Review for writing of Muslims, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." But a few years later, such arguments were commonplace. Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo commented in 2005 that the U.S. response to terrorism should be to bomb Muslim holy cities including Mecca.

Virginia Republican Rep. Virgil Goode complained that the 2006 election of Muslim Americans such as Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison underscored the need for immigration reform (a curious argument considering that Ellison was born in Detroit to Roman Catholic parents).

In 2007, after Bush made a statement pointing to Islam's place alongside Christianity and Judaism in the Abrahamic religious tradition, conservative columnist Cal Thomas asked, "How can the president say that we all worship the same God when Muslims deny the divinity of Jesus?" --- When the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring Ramadan in 2007, 42 Republican congressmen declined to vote in favor of it, instead voting "present."

As a Muslim American and a Republican who served in the Bush administration, I always believed that the anti-Muslim backlash was the work of a small number of cynical bigots, not the view of the vast, fair-minded majority of Americans. --- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, when asked about putting a Muslim American in his cabinet, replied that he "cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified" based on the percentage of Muslims in the country. --- If the Republican candidates treated Muslims as the enemy, the Obama campaign treated them like untouchables, keeping the Democratic candidate's Muslim supporters at arm's length throughout the election. .... More, - America's First Muslim President

PBS - Islam: Empire of Faith - Educational Resources
YouTube - Islam: Empire of Faith. Part 1: Prophet Muhammad and ...