What are we to make if this Zogby poll showing Kerry with a 76-7 lead over Bush in the American Muslim community? Well, it’s probably not something the Kerry campaign is willing to brag about, but maybe they should think about it.
I was just reading a piece in the Atlantic Monthly on “Bush’s Lost Year,” which mentioned the President’s end-of-Ramadan ceremony held in 2001 as an effort to reach out to American Muslims. How far we’d come, the article wrote, when in 2003 Rumsfeld is saying (about Iraq) “We’ll accept any government as long as it’s not Islamic.”
Certainly there’s an opening here for the Kerry campaign. George Bush hasn’t made the inroads with the Muslim community (aside from some Iraqi-Americans who are as excited as he was to settle the old score with Saddam), and that’ a problem. See Josh Marshall’s link this morning to Richard Perle’s silly quote about them naming plazas in Baghdad after W.
It’s an uphill battle for Kerry, too, especially since he was chided by Dick Cheney for saying he’d run a more “sensitive” war on terror. Even though that’s exactly what we need to do right now.
In the end, successfuly navigating the waters of muslim support is tricky. Some might say trickier than piloting a swift boat up the Mekong in ‘68.
Now Playing: Episode 366
Obama staffs up, Detroit comes to DC and finally, Iraq and the US come to a security agreement.
Links Mentioned: Iraq SOFA … pros and cons of a bailout.
