It’s good to have the old maverick doing what he does best.
“Bachmann!”
Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota’s shame, used her oxymoronic presence on the House Intelligence Committee to argue in a June letter to the State Department and a letter this week to fellow Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison, that Huma Abedin, the top aide of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, may be a security risk because Abedin’s late father, mother, and brother had or have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. Abedin’s position, Bachmann suggested ominously, ‘‘affords her routine access to the secretary and policy-making.’’ Her letter to Ellison was signed by five other Republicans: Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Thomas Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia.
Sen McCain angrily took to the Senate floor to call this example of ethnic profiling and Muslim bigotry what it is:
“Recently, it has been alleged that Huma, a Muslim American, is part of a nefarious conspiracy to harm the United States by unduly influencing U.S. foreign policy at the Department of State in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist causes. On June 13, five members of Congress wrote to the deputy inspector general of the Department of State, demanding that he begin an investigation into the possibility that Huma and other American officials are using their influence to promote the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government. The information offered to support these serious allegations is based on a report, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood in America,’ produced by the Center for Security Policy. To say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. It is far better, and more accurate, to talk straight: These allegations about Huma, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant. …I have every confidence in Huma’s loyalty to our country, and everyone else should as well. All Americans owe Huma a debt of gratitude for her many years of superior public service. I hope these ugly and unfortunate attacks on her can be immediately brought to an end and put behind us before any further damage is done to a woman, an American, of genuine patriotism and love of country.”
McCain added, ‘‘When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.”
Exactly.
[Note: Meanwhile, on the Ethics Dunce front, Andrea Mitchell’s descent into naked partisan hackery continued when she reported this story on MSNBC, as she felt that it was appropriate for her to vouch for Huma personally. She’s a reporter, not a witness: this is injecting Mitchell’s personal views into a news story, and is a bright line violation of professional and journalistic ethics standards. But Andrea has been doing a lot of this lately.]
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Source:
Graphic: Daily News
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
Bachmann’s statement about Muslims eerily sound like statements made about Catholics in the 19th century .
How so?
There were often accusations back then accusing Catholics of trying to turn America into a colony of the Vatican. Just check out the cartoons in this blog post .
In this other post, on IsraPundit , I had replied to the post, which claimed that a Muslim judge appointed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would impose Sharia law. I asked if there was “ any evidence that Sahail Mohammed will defy his oath“, and that the judge “should have the same benefit of a doubt as any Christian appointed to a similar position”. I also pointed out that claims about the judge imposing Sharia law sound eerily similar to claims about Justice Antonin Scalia imposing Catholic law.
Also note that the author of that blog post also claimed that “Michelle Bachmann is ethical and she is a heroine”.
What if allegations had surfaced that a person in Huma Abedin’s position had family members who had close ties to the Ku Klux Klan? Would anyone call for an investigation?
If there was hard evidence yes but there is no evidence that she has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The alleged “tie” is several degrees removed from her long-dead father. I’m more closely “tied” to Ethel Merman and Barry Bonds than she is to the Muslim Brotherhood.
I read a post on IsraPundit on this issue. Here is a comment in reply to mine.
Sag. And scary. There’s a parallel universe out there.
And this is why I like John McCain.
An update
Link doesn’t work.
Try this link