March 05, 2009 05:09 PM UTC

Hasan Stands Up To CPAC

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve had a lot of fun over the past year or so with former Republican statehouse candidate Muhammad Ali Hasan, who well and truly earned the title we bestowed on him of “Master of the Terrible Press.”

Having been the punchline of so many jokes, it would be unfair of us to ignore what Hasan said recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference–as the Colorado Independent reports:

No shoes were thrown, but Ali Hasan did put his foot in his mouth last week at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., baffling the arch-conservative crowd with some decidedly moderate views.

“The problem with Republicans and the conservative movement right now,” he said, according to Sarah Posner in the American Prospect, “is we’ve identified the wrong enemy. Our enemies are not Muslims, are not gays, Mexicans, or immigrants – our enemies are labor unions and bailouts.” [Pols emphasis]

The Beaver Creek Republican and founder of Muslims for America ran a colorful, and expensive but ultimately unsuccessful statehouse campaign against Democrat Christine Scanlan last year, touting celibacy, monorails and pheromone packs on pine trees.

In the American Prospect, Posner interviewed Akir Kahn, who works for Hasan’s Muslims for America and decried the portrayal of American Muslims as terrorists by conservative Christian groups.

But in the next breath Kahn charged Democrats with fomenting the same stereotypes, even feeding the Obama-as-a-Muslim rumor mill and putting out pre-election robo-calls questioning why Hasan dropped his first name, Muhammad, during the campaign.

We’ve never seen conclusive proof that the robocalls in question ever actually occurred, and we certainly don’t know what he’s talking about with this charge that Democrats were somehow “feeding the Obama-as-a-Muslim rumor mill.”

Oh right, Hillary Clinton. Last bit retracted.

Anyway, Hasan is half-right when he declares who his enemies are not–broader acknowledgment of this criticism among Republicans could only help them, as we’ve said for years. Unfortunately, his real “enemies” aren’t generally perceived by the American people to be “enemies” either (and isn’t George “Bailout” Bush a big friend of the Hasan family?), but at least that’s honorable ground to lose on.

For once, maybe for the first time ever, we’re proud of Ali Hasan.