Romney: No Muslims in My Cabinet

Mitt Romney was recently asked if a Muslim American might serve in his cabinet, considering the magnitude of the threat Romney believes radical Islam poses to America. According to a first-hand account in CS Monitor, Romney responded, "…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."

Muslims are one percent of the American population. Mormons are two percent. Using Romney's weird quota-based system for deciding the ethnic makeup of his cabinet, which he seemingly decried on CNN, Romney would have to discriminate against members of his own faith.

One wonders if a Mormon should be president at all, considering how few members of that faith there are in America. Maybe Romney should run for governor of Utah. The ethnic mathematics make more sense there.

Update: Steven Benen adds, "Open and unabashed discrimination towards certain Americans — Muslims and gays, among others — is not only acceptable to too many conservatives, it's expected. It's why Romney’s vow to discriminate against Muslims will probably not hurt him politically."

Update Update: A commentor at Think Progress notes that Romney's cabinet will have to be 51 percent women.

Comments

"No, that’s not what I said. His question was, Did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet in order to confront radical jihad, or would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet?’ And I said no, I don’t think you need a Muslim in the Cabinet to take on radical jihad any more than we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature.” - Romney

Romney was completely misquoted according to Romney

Posted by: Nate Webb on 11/27/07 at 11:21 AM Respond

it seems to me that people are so wanting race to not be an issue in the world, but it never fails that a person will ask this kind of question, forcing public figures to address it and making it an issue. Why do we keep on bringing it up. We can't just rely purely on one's qualifications, or their experience or their education or all of the things that make up a person. It seems like we always have to bring a race and religion into it. we can't change our race and our religion is a personal thing that should be kept out of our judgement perameters. I guess it will stop being an issue when people stop making it an issue.

Posted by: a. smith on 11/27/07 at 11:34 AM Respond

Look at all the Jews in the government, probably close to twenty times their make up of the population. We need some Muslims to balance out the Jews. We need quotas.

Posted by: CAIR on 11/27/07 at 11:58 AM Respond

Based on CAIR's comment, Romney will also need to have a certain percentage of murderers, rapists, and other assorted thugs to insure a proper representation of the citizenry. What a bunch of bovine feces. Let's just elect and appoint well-qualified people that will uphold our Constitution.

Posted by: Ron Bellus on 11/27/07 at 4:29 PM Respond

uh, how did we go from jews and muslims to murderers and rapists?

Posted by: jo on 11/27/07 at 7:25 PM Respond

Might someone post the full context here? I think it's irritating to miss that.

Posted by: Fatsoo on 11/27/07 at 9:46 PM Respond

Ron: He will have, quota or no quota, judging from the recent performances of republican congressmen!

Posted by: Pablo on 11/28/07 at 3:52 AM Respond

Fatsoo/Nate -

I'm working on a post on Romney's response. It'll be up soon.

Posted by: Jonathan Stein on 11/28/07 at 6:29 AM Respond

Ron Bellus, "certain percentage of murderers, rapists, and other assorted thugs to insure a proper representation", are you referring to the Zionists in the administration, the neocons, those responsible for the hundreds of thousands of Muslim casualties in the Middle East?

Posted by: Ishmael on 11/28/07 at 7:35 AM Respond

The post I referenced earlier is up:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/11/6314_romney_digs_him.html

Posted by: Jonathan Stein on 11/28/07 at 8:05 AM Respond