Punishing Bachmann

n a controversy that FrontPage continues to coverclosely, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has raised questions – not accusations, just questions – about the infiltration of the U.S. government by Muslim Brotherhood loyalists. She and a few cohorts have specifically addressed the demonstrable Brotherhood family ties of Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of StateHillary Clinton. But under the Obama administration, anything but the most fawning treatment of Islam or Muslims isverboten, and so Ms. Bachmann must be punished.

Andrew C. McCarthy, former prosecutor of the 1993 World Trade Center bomb plot, has already detailed the validity of Bachmann’s concerns in his excellent briefing on the topic. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has also pointed outthe legitimacy of her inquiries. But Bachmann has nonetheless weathered smears and attacks not only from Obama’s people and their media enablers, but sadly, even from invertebrate fellow Republicans like Speaker John Boehner and Senator John McCain as well.

Merely denouncing her is not enough for some on the left, who want to take things to the next level. Democratic consultant Karen Finney, a political analyst for MSNBC, the network that is the progressive left’s loudest and most aggressive television mouthpiece, is calling for Bachmann to be removed from the House Intelligence Committee for daring to raise concerns about this national security issue.

In the bluntly titled “Punish Bachmann,” Finney predictably resorts to the left’s standard arsenal of personal demonization: the race card, the McCarthyism card – shockingly, she doesn’t draw the Islamophobia card but doesresort to “xenophobia” as a handy replacement. Finney calls Bachmann’s questions about Brotherhood infiltration “politically motivated, racist, xenophobic charges,” “baseless accusations,” “offensive,” and “ridiculous assertions” – while Finney herself does not answer, much less refute any of Bachmann’s points. Finney’s sole defense is that she has known Huma Abedin “for over 15 years as a friend and former colleague.”

Making baseless, ridiculous, and politically motivated charges of her own, Finney claimed that any suspicions about Abedin feed into “the narrative of the fearful ‘otherness’ of our first African-American president.” What insulting hooey. The “otherness” many Americans are increasingly outraged about – not “fearful” of – is not Obama’s skin color, but his affinity for Marxism and Islam. Finney claims that this “otherness fear-mongering” is making us

a less globally competitive, internally divided country, unable to embrace change and move forward as a multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious America bound by a Constitution that calls on us to respect the rights and freedoms of every citizen.

More hooey. America is plenty multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, and multireligious, and already does respect the rights and freedoms of every citizen. It is Obama himself who has made us less globally competitive and internally divided. Finney is trying to divert attention from the issue Bachmann raised: the subversive Brotherhood presence in our midst. She would have us believe that such questions are not only offensive but “jeopardize America’s security,” and that it is in our best interests to cultivate a relationship with the Brotherhood for our own protection:

Bachmann and the others who signed on to her call for an investigation have abused their position as members of the House of Representatives, making baseless accusations that recklessly jeopardize an already tense situation in the Middle East, and endangering the life of an American secretary of State and Americans in the region by stoking anti-American sentiment.

Stoking anti-American sentiment? The Muslim Brotherhood is the avowed enemy of America and the West; it’s already up to its collective henna-stained beard in anti-American sentiment. The left, quite frankly, brings its own anti-American sentiment to the table, and sees in Islamic fundamentalism a useful ally in the transformation of America according to Obama’s anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist, post-American vision. It is this unholy alliance, the Obama administration’s embrace of the Brotherhood domestically and abroad, that is jeopardizing America’s security.