A Bigot in CongressToday the New York Times seconded the motion in their typical diffident style.
One Muslim congressman is one too many for Virgil Goode.
BIGOTRY COMES in various guises -- some coded, some closeted, some colossally stupid. The bigotry displayed recently by Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., a Republican who represents a patch of south-central Virginia, falls squarely in the third category. Mr. Goode, evidently in a state of xenophobic delirium, went on a semi-public tirade against the looming peril and corrupting threat posed by Muslim immigration to the United States. "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America," he wrote in a letter to constituents.
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Forget that Muslims represent a small fraction of immigrants to America. And leave aside the obvious point that Mr. Goode was evidently napping in class the day they taught the traditional American values of tolerance, diversity and religious freedom. This country's history is rife with instances of uncivil, hateful and violent behavior toward newcomers, be they Jewish, Irish, Italian or plenty of others whose ethnicities did not jibe with some pinched view of what it means to be American. Mr. Goode's dimwitted outburst of nativism is nothing new.
No, the real worry for the nation is that the rest of the world might take Mr. Goode seriously, interpreting his biased remarks about Muslims as proof that America really has embarked on a civilizational war against Islam. With 535 members, you'd think that Congress would welcome the presence of a single Muslim representative. Whether it can afford a lawmaker of Mr. Goode's caliber is another question.
Besides Santa Claus, the Christmas season usually brings some reminder that the worst way to acknowledge the importance of religious faith in America is by demanding that the entire nation follow one particular theology. Last year it was the war over the nonexistent “war on Christmas.” This year, it’s the flap over whether one newly elected member of Congress can use the Koran rather than the Bible next month in a private ceremony.You would think that Mr. Goode's outburst would bring an avalanche of criticism from fair-minded and enlightened members of Congress, even those who are also Republicans. You'd think that, wouldn't you? After all, the firestorm that greeted Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) when he dared to compare the prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay to the Nazis would indicate that the GOP stood hard and fast against outrageous commentary, and Sen. Durbin apologized profusely. (Although the same can't be said for Sen. Rick Santorum when he dredged up the Nazis himself.)
Keith Ellison, who converted to Islam when he was in college, will be the first Muslim member of the House of Representatives come January. He and his new colleagues will take the oath of office as a group, and then repeat it in private for the benefit of family and friends. It is only in that second ceremony that the Bible comes into play, and to the extent that it has a significance, we suspect Mr. Ellison’s constituents in Minnesota would like to see him using a book that best represents his religious beliefs.
Not so for a radio talk host named Dennis Prager, who claimed that using the Koran would “embolden Islamic extremists.” Then Representative Virgil Goode Jr. of Virginia announced that his concerns went beyond the erosion of the Bible’s exclusive rights to be sworn on. Mr. Goode is bothered by Mr. Ellison’s faith in general, and wrote a letter to his constituents saying that this was a wake-up call about the danger that there would be “many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran” unless immigration laws were tightened.
Mr. Ellison, who traces his ancestors in the United States to 1742, has behaved with extreme grace throughout the incident. As for Mr. Prager and Mr. Goode, we appreciate their help in demonstrating how very fast things can get both nutty and unpleasant once the founding fathers’ wise decision to avoid institutionalizing any religious faith gets breached.
Well, as Josh Marshall and the gang at TPM have found out, the Republican response to Mr. Goode has been [crickets].
Forget strategery. Time's short, so it's quantity of calls over quality. I've been calling GOP congresspeople alphabetically, starting with Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), to get their thoughts on Virgil Goode's anti-Muslim immigration comments.The WaPo looks into the background of Mr. Goode. Turns out this kind of behavior is nothing new.
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL): "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you. We haven't seen the letter." (I offer to email a copy of the letter.) "I appreciate that but my boss is back in the district for Christmas, and I don't think this is going to be something he would want to address."
Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO): Offices closed.
Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA): Offices closed.
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL): "I think the odds of me tracking down Mr. Bachus this afternoon are very low."
Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA): Offices closed.
Rep. J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC): Offices closed.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD): "Congressman Bartlett has not commented on it. . . I'm afraid I can't help you out there."
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX): Offices closed.
Virgil Goode is used to having people mad at him.Translation: He's a sniveling bigot and always has been.
His Democratic Party bosses pitched a fit when he challenged Chuck Robb in the 1994 U.S. Senate primary. They steamed in 1996 when he forced his party to share power with Republican lawmakers in the state legislature. And they seethed in 1998 when he voted to impeach President Bill Clinton.
Goode responded with a shrug, and by switching parties, becoming a Republican member of Congress after decades as an independent-minded Democratic state lawmaker and representative of Southside Virginia.
Now, by taking aim at a newly elected Muslim member of Congress from Minnesota, the Democrat-turned-Republican congressman has sparked the ire of immigrant groups and invited unwanted attention from national TV networks and newspapers.
"That's Virgil exactly," said state Del. Allen W. Dudley (R-Franklin), who grew up with Goode and attended Franklin County High School with him in the mid-1960s. "He's very strong in what he believes and doesn't mind speaking what he believes."
There are those who say we should just ignore Mr. Goode; by giving him this attention we're enabling him and his like-minded orcs to shout their stupidities into the headlines. That's fine with me. The more light we shine on them, the more it will be revealed that it is people like Mr. Ellison who represent the real America.
Update: The White House, meanwhile, is aware of the situation, but as for a statement, just more crickets.
