In a recent column, you claim that Barack Obama has an obligation to condemn an award given to Louis Farrakhan by a magazine with ties to Obama's church. You note that Farrakhan has a history of making anti-Semitic and anti-white comments and call this a legitimate concern. Fair enough.
But what about the ties numerous GOP contenders have to organizations and people who, over the years, may have expressed bigoted viewpoints themselves or have ties to bigots? It's only fair, isn't it? For example, Roberto D'Aubuisson, the man notorious for organizing death squads in El Salvador and assassinating the beloved Archibishop Oscar Romero was given an award by numerous prominent conservative groups.
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As the WaPo, your own paper, reported at the time:
More than a dozen conservative organizations last night honored Roberto D'Aubuisson, the leader of El Salvador's extreme right wing, with a plaque and a closed-door dinner for 120 people at the Capitol Hill Club.
The plaque expresses appreciation for D'Aubuisson's "continuing efforts for freedom in the face of communist aggression which is an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere."
[...]
Groups that joined in presenting the plaque to D'Aubuisson included the Viguerie Co., Gun Owners of America, the Western Goals Endowment Fund, the Washington Legal Foundation, the United States Defense Committee, the American Foreign Policy Council, the Public Service Research Council, the Moral Majority, The Washington Times, the National Right-to-Work Committee, the National Pro-Life Political Action Committee, Intercessors for America, the Young Americans Foundation and the Young Americans for Freedom. Presidential assistant and former U.S. ambassador Faith Ryan Whittlesey also joined in the presentation, but reportedly did not attend the dinner.
Other hosts for the dinner included the Free Congress Foundation, the Conservative Caucus and the Conservative Alliance, according to Lynn Stoner of the National Council for Better Education, who helped organize the event.
Here is what Mr. D'Aubuisson thought about the Jews:
You Germans were very intelligent. You realized that the Jews were responsible for the spread of Communism and you began to kill them
Also, have you completely forgotten about this:
From Wiki:
Robertson's tome The New World Order was described as a 'catch all for conspiracy theories' by Christian academic Don Wilkey:
Pat Robertson’s work, NEW WORLD ORDER, is a catch all for conspiracy theories. It combines the paranoia of the Old Right with modern versions. A summary of Robertson’s book is found on page 177 in which Pat says a conspiracy has existed in the world working through Freemasonry and a secret Order of the Illuminati, a group combining Masons and Jewish Bankers.
Ephraim Radner also accuses Robertson of espousing anti-semitic beliefs in the same book:
In his published writings, especially his 1991 book The New World Order, Pat Robertson has propagated theories about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Michael Land raised the issue in February in the New York Times Book Review, and in April Jacob Heilbrun, writing in the New York Review of Books, cited chapter and verse of Robertson's borrowings from well-known anti-Semitic works.
And what about this:
Link:
August 1980: After Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith tells a Dallas Religious Right gathering that "God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew," Falwell gives a similar view. "I do not believe," he told reporters, "that God answers the prayer of any unredeemed Gentile or Jew." After a meeting with an American Jewish Committee rabbi, he changed course, telling an interviewer on NBC’s "Meet the Press" that "God hears the prayers of all persons. God hears everything."
[...]
March 1993: Despite his promise to Jewish groups to stop referring to America as a "Christian nation," Falwell gives a sermon saying, "We must never allow our children to forget that this is a Christian nation. We must take back what is rightfully ours."
[...]
January 1999: Falwell tells a pastors’ conference in Kingsport, Tenn., that the Antichrist prophesied in the Bible is alive today and "of course he’ll be Jewish"
Link:
"A few of you don’t like the Jews and I know why," Falwell sanctimoniously told his congregation. "They can make more money accidentally than you can on purpose" (The Washington Star, July 3, 1980).
...and to tie things all together:
In the Spring of 1984 Pat Robertson and CBN reporter Norm Mintle traveled to El Salvador where they met with the late Roberto D’Aubuisson. Following the trip, the "700 Club" aired four 20-30 minute segments on El Salvador, the major theme being that D’Aubuisson was a "very nice fellow" who was being maligned by the "biased liberalism" of Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report.
Please post more examples of ties to bigots that current GOP candidates (other than Ron Paul) may have. Maybe we'll make some sort petition with a collection of the ties and demand that Cohen write a follow-up article asking the GOP contenders to condemn those ties.