Tuesday, November 27, 2007

MITT ROMNEY

Team Romney, Thinking Something's Amiss in Ijaz's Account

Mansour Ijaz, writing in the Christian Science Monitor:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Team Romney indicates that they are skeptical of Mr. Ijaz’s account. They’re not saying that the quote is false, because they don’t have a record of the exact words in their conversation; their meeting occurred at a political fundraiser in Las Vegas. But they say that the quotes of Romney that appear in Ijaz’s article don’t represent the views of their man.

They point to this comment, on CNN’s Situation Room, yesterday, as representative of his views:

Governor Romney:  "…  But I also think that suggesting that we have to fill spots based on checking off boxes of various ethnic groups is really a very inappropriate way to think about how we staff positions. I'm very pleased that, among my Cabinet members, for instance, I had several African-American individuals. I had people of different backgrounds. But I don't go in every circumstance I'm in and say, OK, how many African-Americans, how many Hispanic-Americans, how many Asian-Americans, and fill boxes that way.  I fill responsibilities based upon people's merit and their skill. And, sometimes, it includes many ethnic minorities. And, other times, it includes different minorities. But I'm very pleased with my record."  (CNN's "Situation Room," 11/27/07)

Captain Ed finds Ijaz's line of argument asinine, calling him, "a self-promoter and identity-politics obsessive."

It seems to me that there are two separate issues here. The first is whether the next president should consider having a qualified Muslim in his cabinet, and the answer is an obvious yes, he (or, sigh, she) should consider it. A Ijaz describes, it would be great to have a qualified Muslim CIA Director, FBI Director, or Secretary of Defense. If Romney really was asked that question, and gave the response that Ijaz describes, it speaks poorly of him. But no candidate ought to commit to having a Muslim in his cabinet, and it's easy to see Romney giving the answer in Ijaz's account if that was the question he was asked.

We're left with a he-said, he-said situation.

11/27 09:43 AMShare