Cooper Levey-Baker reported a few days ago that Florida House Speaker Republican Adam Hasner, who is reportedly planning to run for U.S. Senate, warned a Tea Party group of the menace of "progressive Sharia-compliant Islam."
Hasner continued, echoing previous remarks in saying that “America's economic prosperity, our strong national security and our foundational Judeo-Christian principles are interwoven and inseparable.” He then challenged Republicans not to shy away from controversial issues, such as “progressive Sharia-compliant Islam.”
"Sharia-compliant Islam" is nonsensical and redundant, a bit like saying "Jews who keep Kosher." While Republicans have sought to -- and largely succeeded among their own -- redefine Sharia as Taliban-style Islamic law, it really just refers to Muslim religious obligations. There is broad agreement on certain principles like prayer, and disagreement on others, like draconian punishments for adultery. "Progressive Sharia-compliant Islam" is word salad.
Hasner's remarks remind me of a post I wanted to write a little while ago about the press giving Newt Gingrich a pass on his remarks about "a secular atheist country" that would be "dominated by radical Islamists."
"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."
Gingrich's spokespeople tried to explain this away as as a mere misstatement, but conservatives have long alleged a political alliance between "radical Islamists" and the American left. Not just Glenn Beck, but National Review's Andrew McCarthy, who wrote a book about the subject and then a follow-up pamphlet because he wanted to make sure everyone knew that he wasn't accidentally trying to sound like a complete lunatic.
Gingrich praised McCarthy's book prior to his lengthy campaign against the so-called Ground Zero mosque last year, so it's not as though he's unaware of this theory. It's just that among conservatives, it doesn't sound completely idiotic. As long as such thoughts are expressed to other inmates in the asylum, they sound completely normal.
McCarthy went through the effort of developing a whole theory about how the secular left and the Muslim Brotherhood were working together to destroy America and establish their Islamosocialist utopia, but "progressive Sharia-compliant Islam" simply communicates in culture-war grunts what the base needs to hear: I hate Muslims, and I hate liberals. Vote for me.
