Obama appoints devout Muslim and defender of Muslim jihadists as envoy to the organization of Islamic nations

This is from Gary Bauer’s daily e-mail:

Another Controversial Appointee

I know this news may surprise you, but another Obama appointee is caught in the middle of a brewing controversy. Hard to believe, isn’t it? This weekend, President Obama appointed Rashad Hussain to be the Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents 57 Muslim nations.

ABC’s Jake Tapper reported, “Hussain is a devout Muslim and helped inform the speech President Obama gave in Cairo—particularly with the speech’s references to the history of Islam and the Koran, and its general tone.” You may recall that in his Cairo speech, President Obama made a number of shocking statements embracing moral relativism, denying American exceptionalism and suggesting that Islam played a role in America’s founding. But that’s not the controversy.

Hussain is under scrutiny for a 2004 article by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Hussain was initially quoted in the article defending Sami Al-Arian, a radical Muslim professor charged with raising money for terrorist groups. At a 2004 conference hosted by the Muslim Students Association, Hussain allegedly said that al-Arian was the victim of “politically motivated persecutions.” In 2006 al-Arian pled guilty to conspiring to aid the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Hussain admits to attending the conference, but denies defending al-Arian. Conveniently, the quotes were mysteriously scrubbed from the publication’s website in February 2009, but the article’s author stands by her reporting.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 18, 2010 03:01 PM | Send