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Thursday August 02, 2012

Leadership or Pandering: Grading Our Elected Officials

Posted by Frank Matt at 1:09 pm

Every so often an issue emerges that presents a clear choice of right and wrong and with it a clear opportunity for public officials to demonstrate leadership. It is these opportunities that inspired AAI’s “Leadership or Pandering” Series. This series examines the statements made by policymakers and candidates as they address divisive issues that provide clear opportunities to stand against bigotry. The goal of “Leadership or Pandering” is not to pass judgment on any elected official on the whole, but rather to hold them accountable for the words they use when it counts. The first edition of AAI’s “Leadership or Pandering” series graded the responses of public officials to the campaign against a planned Muslim community center in lower Manhattan.

This edition of ‘Leadership or Pandering” takes a look at the unfounded attacks on American Muslim public servants by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and cosigned by Representatives Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Tom Rooney (R-FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA). Bachmann released letters they had collectively sent to the Inspectors General of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence calling on them to investigate whether "influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood" have "had an impact on the federal government's national security policies.” The letters warned of "determined efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood to penetrate and subvert the American government as part of its 'civilizational jihad'" and asked the Inspectors General to identify the Muslims who were influencing U.S. policy. They also named names, using dubious “six degrees of separation” logic to accuse American Muslim public servants like Huma Abedin, Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, as Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators.

Bachmann’s witch-hunt is an issue that presents a clear opportunity for public officials to demonstrate either leadership or pandering. Many elected officials and policymakers have weighed in, some in defense of Bachmann’s campaign of bigotry and others making impassioned arguments for tolerance and religious liberty in the wake of these attacks. Still more have tried to find a middle ground, either with a measured response or by limiting their criticism to the specific attacks. We hope this guide provides an effective means for you to judge the statements by your own elected officials and hold them accountable for their responses to religious intolerance.

View: Leadership or Pandering: Grading our Elected Officials (2012) 

Tagged as Issues, 2012 Presidential Candidates, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Islamophobia, Profiling, Park 51, Research, Publications, Presidential Candidates, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich