Turns out Ted Cruz's call for a police state in which law enforcement officials "patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods" hasn't gone over so well, especially among Muslim Americans, reports Matt Flegenheimer.
The comments drew immediate rebukes from Muslim groups who were already wary of Mr. Cruz. Last week, he came under fire after announcing a team of national security advisers that included Frank Gaffney Jr., a former Reagan administration official who is perhaps best known for holding extreme views about Islam. (He once wrote an op-ed in The Washington Times suggesting that President Obama is a Muslim.)
In a phone interview on Tuesday, Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called Mr. Cruz a “religious zealot” with little regard for civil liberties.
“We do not have the problem that Ted Cruz envisions,” Mr. Awad said of Muslims in the United States. “He wants to bring to our memories checkpoints in the streets. That’s really going to be similar to third-world countries and to what happened in Nazi Germany.”
Apparently, Ted Cruz, who considers himself Mr. Religious Liberty, only wants "religious freedom" for people of certain faiths. When Cruz told Iowa voters last year at his "Rally for Religious Liberty" that there's "a war on faith in America today," we had no idea this is what he had in mind.