HEY, EVERYBODY, OUR PANDERING FAILED!:

THE POLITICS OF PANDER (Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., 9/16/03, Jewish World Review)

Every once in a while a highly visible political gambit comes completely a cropper. Particularly when it involves -- to say nothing of embarrasses -- the President of the United States, it generally gets considerable public notice . Often the proverbial head rolls. At the very least, a course-correction is usually quickly effected.

What are we to make, then, of the astonishing silence, the utter lack of accountability and the absence of any apparent shift in electoral strategy that has accompanied the meltdown of the one of Bush political team's major initiatives: Its effort to recruit Muslim -- and Arab-American voters (and donors) by pandering to foreign-funded organizations led by radical Leftists and even pro-"Islamists" -- despite the fact that most members of those communities neither are radical nor subscribe to the virulently intolerant, and often violently anti-American, tenets of those who promote Islamism.

Are you supposed to advertise your own failed initiatives? It was a sensible effort; it failed; move on.

Shouldn't Mr. Gaffney be happy that the President is pressing ahead with the War on Terror even though it is costing the GOP the potential support of Muslim Americans and not helping at all among American Jews?

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 16, 2003 8:38 AM