Say Anything Blog

Some of you may be familiar with a group called the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. This is a group that describes itself as the "Muslim NAACP." Some of its leaders stood by President Bush and Colin Powell as those men spoke out against backlash against Muslims in the wake of 9/11. CAIR spokespeople are routinely quoted as authorities on the Muslim-American community and the relationship between Islam and the American population in general.

To many this group may sound benignly positive, even necessary, in this age of extreme tension between westerners and practitioners of Islam. The truth about this group, however, will probably shock a lot of people.

To quote Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha:

...there is another side to CAIR that has alarmed many people in positions to know. The Department of Homeland Security refuses to deal with it. Senator Charles Schumer (Democrat, New York) describes it as an organization "which we know has ties to terrorism."[3] Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) observes that CAIR is "unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect."[4] Steven Pomerantz, the FBI's former chief of counterterrorism, notes that "CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups."[5] The family of John P. O'Neill, Sr., the former FBI counterterrorism chief who perished at the World Trade Center, named CAIR in a lawsuit as having "been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism"[6] responsible for the September 11 atrocities. Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson calls it "a radical fundamentalist front group for Hamas."[7]

Of particular note are the American Muslims who reject CAIR's claim to speak on their behalf. The late Seifeldin Ashmawy, publisher of the New Jersey-based Voice of Peace, called CAIR the champion of "extremists whose views do not represent Islam."[8] Jamal Hasan of the Council for Democracy and Tolerance explains that CAIR's goal is to spread "Islamic hegemony the world over by hook or by crook."[9] Kamal Nawash, head of Free Muslims Against Terrorism, finds that CAIR and similar groups condemn terrorism on the surface while endorsing an ideology that helps foster extremism, adding that "almost all of their members are theocratic Muslims who reject secularism and want to establish Islamic states."

CAIR's fostering of extremist Islam varies from the laughable - like their photoshopping of hijabs onto the bare heads of women pictured at a photo-op - to the horrifying, like their blatant antisemitism and support for Muslim supremacy. To this observer, it seems as though CAIR is little more than a well-funded propaganda group aimed at downplaying and whitewashing the danger of Islamic terrorism and extremism.

In 1998 the group demanded the removal of a billboard in Los Angeles which depicted Osama bin Laden as "America's sworn enemy."

In April of 2005 the founder of a Texas chapter of CAIR was convicted of supporting terrorism.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks CAIR was caught misdirecting funds they were allegedly gathering for 9/11 relief to Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a group that later had its funds frozen by the Treasury Department because the group was funding Hamas. Later, in 2004, the Holy Land Foundation was indicted for conspiracy, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, tax evasion and money laundering (a case that is still in the works).

Just this year CAIR was pressuring schools to white wash the events of 9/11 in school textbooks in order to avoid giving students a bad impression of Islam.

I could go on and on about CAIR's connections to international terrorism and their efforts to downplay the threat of terrorism here in America, but those examples should tell you pretty much all you need to know about this group.

So why am I telling you all of this about CAIR? Certainly America has its fair share of radical, extremist, racist groups...so what does it matter that CAIR represents one more entry in that category? It matters because we are in the midst of a war against the very ideology CAIR supports, and many of our elected leaders seem to have political agendas that match up much too closely with CAIR's for comfort.

Check out this list of Representatives in the House who "support the interests" of CAIR as ranked by the organization itself (Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right):

Democrats	Rating	Republicans	Rating	Independents	Rating
Victor F. 'Vic' Snyder	100	Donald E. 'Don' Young	100	Bernard 'Bernie' Sanders	100
Ed Pastor	100	Richard W. Pombo	100
Raúl M. Grijalva	100	Ileana Ros-Lehtinen	100
C. Michael 'Mike' Thompson	100	Lincoln Diaz-Balart	100
Lynn C. Woolsey	100	Mario Diaz-Balart	100
George Miller	100	Christopher H. 'Chris' Smith	100
Nancy Pelosi	100	Heather A. Wilson	100
Barbara J. Lee	100	Ronald E. 'Ron' Paul	100
Ellen O. Tauscher	100
Tom Lantos	100
Fortney H. 'Pete' Stark	100
Zoe Lofgren	100
Sam Farr	100
Lois Capps	100
Brad J. Sherman	100
Howard L. Berman	100
Adam B. Schiff	100
Henry A. Waxman	100
Xavier Becerra	100
Hilda L. Solis	100
Diane E. Watson	100
Lucille Roybal-Allard	100
Maxine Waters	100
Jane Harman	100
Juanita Millender-McDonald	100
Grace Flores Napolitano	100
Linda T. Sánchez	100
Joe Baca	100
Bob Filner	100
Susan A. Davis	100
Diana L. DeGette	100
Mark E. Udall	100
John B. Larson	100
Rosa L. DeLauro	100
Corrine Brown	100
Kendrick B. Meek	100
Robert Wexler	100
Debbie Wasserman Schultz	100
Alcee L. Hastings	100
Cynthia Ann McKinney	100
John R. Lewis	100
Neil Abercrombie	100
Leonard L. Boswell	100
Bobby L. Rush	100
Jesse Louis Jackson	100
Luis V. Gutierrez	100
Rahm Emanuel	100
Danny K. Davis	100
Janice D. 'Jan' Schakowsky	100
Lane A. Evans	100
Peter J. Visclosky	100
Julia M. Carson	100
Dennis Moore	100
William J. Jefferson	100
John W. Olver	100
Richard E. Neal	100
James P. 'Jim' McGovern	100
Barney Frank	100
Martin T. 'Marty' Meehan	100
John F. Tierney	100
Edward J. 'Ed' Markey	100
Michael E. Capuano	100
Stephen F. Lynch	100
William D. 'Bill' Delahunt	100
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger	100
Benjamin L. Cardin	100
Albert R. Wynn	100
Steny H. Hoyer	100
Elijah E. Cummings	100
Christopher 'Chris' Van Hollen	100
Thomas H. Allen	100
Michael H. Michaud	100
Dale E. Kildee	100
Sander M. Levin	100
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick	100
John Conyers	100
John D. Dingell	100
Betty McCollum	100
Martin Olav Sabo	100
James L. Oberstar	100
William Lacy Clay	100
John Russell 'Russ' Carnahan	100
Emanuel Cleaver	100
Bennie G. Thompson	100
Bob R. Etheridge	100
David Eugene Price	100
Melvin Luther 'Mel' Watt	100
R. Bradley 'Brad' Miller	100
Earl Pomeroy	100
Robert Menendez	100
Robert E. 'Rob' Andrews	100
Frank J. Pallone	100
William J. 'Bill' Pascrell	100
Steven R. Rothman	100
Donald M. Payne	100
Rush D. Holt	100
Tom S. Udall	100
Shelley Berkley	100
Timothy H. Bishop	100
Steve J. Israel	100
Carolyn McCarthy	100
Gary L. Ackerman	100
Gregory W. Meeks	100
Joseph Crowley	100
Jerrold L. Nadler	100
Anthony David Weiner	100
Edolphus 'Ed' Towns	100
Major R. Owens	100
Nydia M. Velázquez	100
Carolyn B. Maloney	100
Charles B. 'Charlie' Rangel	100
José E. Serrano	100
Eliot L. Engel	100
Nita M. Lowey	100
Brian M. Higgins	100
Louise McIntosh Slaughter	100
Marcy Kaptur	100
Dennis J. Kucinich	100
Stephanie Tubbs Jones	100
Sherrod C. Brown	100
David Wu	100
Earl Blumenauer	100
Robert A. 'Bob' Brady	100
Chaka Fattah	100
John P. 'Jack' Murtha	100
Allyson Y. Schwartz	100
Michael F. 'Mike' Doyle	100
Patrick Joseph Kennedy	100
James R. 'Jim' Langevin	100
John Spratt	100
John Spratt	100
Al Green	100
Silvestre Reyes	100
Sheila Jackson Lee	100
Charles A. 'Charlie' Gonzalez	100
Lloyd A. Doggett	100
Solomon P. Ortiz	100
Eddie Bernice Johnson	100
Robert C. 'Bobby' Scott	100
James P. Moran	100
Jay Inslee	100
Rick Larsen	100
Brian N. Baird	100
Norman D. 'Norm' Dicks	100
James A. 'Jim' McDermott	100
Adam Smith	100
Tammy Baldwin	100
Ronald James 'Ron' Kind	100
Gwendolynne S. 'Gwen' Moore	100
David Ross Obey	100
Alan B. Mollohan	100
Nick Joe Rahall	100

By my count, there are 154 Democrats in the House of Representatives who get a 100% rating from the terror apologists at CAIR. Currently there are 201 Democrats total in the House, which means that a full 76%, more than 3/4's, of them get the CAIR stamp of approval.

On the flip side, there's only 8 Republicans who get CAIR's approval out of the 231 GOP'ers in the House. That's 3.5%.

I can't find where CAIR has issued rankings like this for the Senate, but I think you get the drift as to the sort of politicians CAIR lends its support to.

So what do we say about this? Well, maybe we should consider why it is that a terror-apologizing, terror-connected group like CAIR overwhelmingly supports one political party over the other. It just makes sense that CAIR should support the Democrats. The Dems oppose aggressive anti-terror techniques like NSA call monitoring, Treasury Department finance tracking (which has tripped up CAIR in the past as I pointed out above), and aggressive interrogation of terror detainees. They oppose fighting the war on terror in the middle east. They seem to think that we can hide out within our own borders and just react to terror attacks as they happen.

Even the Republicans CAIR supports are woefully weak on terrorism. As I type this NM Rep. Heather Wilson, who got a 100% rating in the list above, has proposed legislation that would require our government to wait until after a terror attack before authorizing an electronic surveillance program under FISA laws. What good does electronic surveillance do in the aftermath of a terrorist attack? If you say that it will help us round up those responsible, you may be right but most of those responsible for these attacks usually die in them because they're suicide attacks. And that point aside, our goal should be to protect ourselves from terror attacks, not round up those responsible for the attacks after several thousand of our fellow citizens have already been killed.

As far as I'm concerned, CAIR's list of recommendations works as a list of people Americans concerned about the war on terror shouldn't vote for under any circumstances. I think the people on this list, and the people who agree with the people on this list, need to consider the fact that they're finding themselves on the same side of our foreign policy as the allies of our enemies. I won't go so far as to say that they actively support terrorism, or that they are happy about receiving CAIR's endorsement, but the fact remains that their policy choices line up with CAIR's interests...and that's not a good thing.

Update: Some are wondering why CAIR's ratings are either 100% or 0%, which is something Rusty is questioning.

This bit of information from the Vote Smart website (where the data above was pulled from) may explain it:

Project Vote Smart collects performance evaluations from special interest groups who provide them, regardless of issue or bias. Most ratings reflect how often members of Congress or state legislators have voted with the organization's preferred position on legislation that the group considers key in their area. In general, ratings from special interest groups represent a biased or partisan stance. Some groups may select votes that tend to favor members of one political party over another, rather than choosing votes based solely on issue-related concerns.

Despite their bias, special interest group ratings can help indicate where an incumbent has stood on a particular set of issues in the past few years. They can be especially useful when ratings by groups on all sides of an issue are compared. Web site links, if available, and descriptions of the organizations offering ratings are accessible by clicking on the name of the group.

Most performance evaluations are displayed in a percentage format. However, some organizations present their ratings in the form of a letter grade or endorsement based on voting records, interviews, survey results and/or sources of campaign funding. For consistency, Project Vote Smart converts their scores into a percentage when possible.

It could be that CAIR did a "for or against" ranking of House politicians and Vote Smart converted it to percentages.

Update: Just got this email from Project Vote Smart:

Hi Rob,

The ratings from CAIR came in that percentage form i.e. We did not convert them. That said, they were - as you suspected - based upon a single vote (The Real ID Act). This is rare. But, nonetheless, that's where the figures came from.

Please feel free to contact Project Vote Smart again if you have additional factual questions or concerns.

Thank you,
Trevor Kluckman
vote-smart.org

Would have been nice had they put that little tid-bit of information with the rankings on their website.

Information on the Real ID Act.