Ben Carson's anti-Muslim comments have given Republicans a chance to look good by
distancing themselves from him, with the cooperation of many in the media. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham and others do deserve credit for rejecting an unconstitutional religious test for the presidency, but let's not get carried away here.
Yes, the New York Times can reasonably point to moments in which George W. Bush referred to "the peaceful teachings of Islam" or John McCain rejected a supporter's characterization of President Obama as "an Arab." But are those moments the ones that define the tenor of the Republican attitude toward Islam? Not hardly.
A Pew survey last year asking individuals to rate, from 1 to 100, their feelings about religious groups found that Muslims only averaged 33 percent among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters — far below other faiths. [...]
But concern about Islam extends more broadly on the right. Despite President Obama’s release of his birth certificate, false claims about his place of birth and faith persist among some conservatives. A full 60 percent of Republicans said they viewed Islam unfavorably in a 2013 New York Times-CBS poll.
That's the Republican base, but there's not as much distance between the base and the leaders as anyone citing those Bush and McCain quotes would like you to believe. Rep. Steve King not only
thinks there's no anti-Muslim discrimination in this country, he seems offended that anyone would suggest there is.
Oklahoma,
Alabama,
North Carolina, and
Michigan have passed or tried to pass anti-Sharia laws. One Republican was elected to Congress after having said that
Muslims don't have First Amendment rights.
Fox News and Louisiana Gov.
Bobby Jindal have peddled lies about Muslim "no-go zones." Multiple members of the House have
tried to connect the Obama administration and the
Muslim Brotherhood. And it's become standard for at least a couple of Republican presidential candidates to go hard on the anti-Islam—not just Carson this time around but Republican leader
Donald Trump and lower-tier candidate Bobby Jindal;
Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann in 2012.
This is not a party that can put a lot of self-righteous distance between itself and Ben Carson's remarks. Or, to put it another way, if your party's top two candidates are anti-Muslim, that just might say something about your party.