Obama Muslim Coordinator Resigns

[oberliner]

Barack Obama's national Muslim outreach coordinator has resigned amid a controversy of over his connections to a man who the Justice Department named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fund-raisers.

Mazen Asbahi, a Chicago lawyer who had been appointed to help Obama reach out to Muslims, stepped down on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported late last night.

The paper had inquired about his relationship with Jamal Said, who served on a board with Asbahi in 2000 that is a subsidiary of the North American Islamic Trust, which holds titles to mosques, Islamic centers, schools, and other real estate around the country. Said had been named in an investigation of alleged Hamas fund-raisers, which ended in a mistrial last year, the paper reported.

"I am stepping down from the volunteer role I recently agreed to take on with the Obama campaign as Arab-American and Muslim American coordinator in order to avoid distracting from Barack Obama's message of change," Ashabi wrote in a statement Obama's campaign staff released last night.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080601081.html?hpid=sec-religion

[silverojo]

1. Just what Obama needs...not.

If people would quit creating committees to coddle every freaking group of people out there, maybe we'd have enough manpower to reach out to Americans of EVERY race, religion, etc.

Where's the Wiccan-American coordinator?
Or the Buddhist-American coordinator?
Or the People Who Are Skeptical About God, But Won't Become Athiests Just In Case God Does Exist-American coordinator?

Fuck it all...just talk to Americans about the issues. Foreclosures, $4/gallon gas, banks going under, the Iraq war, etc., are a helluva lot more important than creating a group to say "pretty-please, Muslims, I do hope you'll see your way clear to voting for me...after all, G.W. Bush has been SO good to you for the past 8 years...."

:sarcasm:

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. Muslim-Americans are a group which he has to pay special attention to

He has done a lot to distance himself from Islam, to the point where he may cause resentment in that community. If Muslims stay home it could be bad news, especially in a state like Michigan.

[truthisfreedom]

2. Hmh. Well, at least we have dozens of McLame resignations to remember when they come after Obama...

[Freddie Stubbs]

4. Correct

but nothing get people riled up quite like terrorism.