Add Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) to the list politicians with selective memory about Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s global outreach on behalf of the United States.
Pawlenty, a presidential hopeful for 2012, appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” last night to decry Obama’s support for the Islamic cultural center proposed by Rauf’s Cordoba House at a site two blocks from Ground Zero. He also criticized the State Department for sending Rauf on a diplomatic mission to the Middle East, saying that was “disgusting” and “dangerous.”
“To have him be the leader not just of this mosque but to hire him through the State Department and send him around the world on our behalf is ridiculous,” Pawlenty told Sean Hannity. “It is quite quite dangerous, quite concerning.”
But Pawlenty failed to mention a key fact (which TPM reported last week) that Rauf has been doing similar diplomatic work going back to George W. Bush’s administration. Rauf attended the 2006 U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar; in 2007 went to Morocco; and he worked closely with Bush-era Muslim outreach aides. (TPM asked Karen Hughes, James Glassman and Condoleezza Rice about the controversy and Rauf’s role in both Administrations. Hughes and Rice declined to comment through spokespeople, Glassman hasn’t yet responded.)
“His work on tolerance and religious diversity is well-known and he brings a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it’s like to be a practicing Muslim in the United States,” State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said of Rauf last week.
Crowley also told reporters that Rauf will speak about “Muslim life in America and religious tolerance” through State’s International Information program, which sponsored 52 similar trips last year alone. It’s Rauf’s third trip under that program, having gone on one in 2007 and earlier this year to Egypt. He went on the U.S.-Islamic World Forum trip in 2006 with State Department officials, including Karen Hughes, under different auspices.
Last night, Pawlenty said Obama is “playing the role of law professor” by trying to argue about legal rights to build what critics are calling a “mosque.” He said it should be about “basic decency, judgment, respect and appropriate recognition” of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Watch Pawlenty below. The segment about Rauf begins about 2 minutes, 20 seconds into the clip:
