By Debbie Schlussel
Is President Bush really the anti-terror President?

Then, why was his campaign honcho, Oakland County, Michigan Republican Chairman Paul Welday, praising a HAMAS front-group as having “shown the most commitment to democracy of any group I’ve ever known”?

And why did Welday (pfw@renaissancestrategies.us) equate Israeli efforts to eliminate terrorists with mass homicide bombings in pizza shops and coffee houses?

Welday isn’t just anybody.  He was one of the few Bush “Pioneers” in 2000, raising over $100,000 for the campaign.  In the important swing State of Michigan, Welday, a lobbyist, regularly appears on Michigan television on behalf of Bush and the GOP.

On Sunday, Welday, appeared on behalf of President Bush (at the White House’s request) at the Michigan candidate forum held by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

“Appeared” is a loose term.  “Pandered” is more accurate.

Both Oliver “Buck” Revell and Steve Pomerantz, former FBI Directors of Counterterrorism, call CAIR, a HAMAS front-group.  CAIR got its original seed money and executive director, Nihad Awad, from another group (Islamic Association for Palestine) that was started with $490,000 from the personal bank account of HAMAS political director Moussa Abu Marzook.  CAIR now gets significant funding from Saudi Arabia.

CAIR Chief Awad, an avowed HAMAS supporter, compared Hezbollah—the terrorist group that murdered over 300 U.S. Marines and civilians–to Patrick Henry and the founding fathers. After the 9/11 attacks, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper refused to specifically denounce Bin Laden.  CAIR designated the conviction of the “Blind Cleric,” Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as a hate-crime.  Its spokesman, Hooper, and Board Chairman, Omar Ahmad, support transforming the United States into a Muslim theocratic state.

I’ve written a great deal about CAIR and it’s scary relationship with President Bush.

Is this the kind of group with which a counter-terror Prez hangs?  Only if he’s trying to keep up with Sybil.

Back to Bush’s representative, Paul Welday.  In his remarks, Welday, told the CAIR-Michigan audience:

“This group – many of you – friends of mine – does a great job of showing the balance of the Muslim community as committed Americans . . . .  You have shown the most commitment to democracy of any group I’ve ever known.”

Even more nauseating, Welday went on to equate efforts to fight terrorism with the terrorism attacks themselves.  “We need to stop the [Israeli’s] sending of missiles into the Gaza Strip.  We need to stop the violence on both sides.”

Israeli missiles in Gaza were directed specifically—and successfully—at HAMAS and other terrorist leaders.  The latest was in response to Palestinian terrorists’ murder of two young Ethiopian Israeli boys while they were playing outside.

Paul Welday apparently thinks those leaders deserve to live to continue masterminding their mass murders of women and children eating pizza, drinking coffee, and playing ball.  In Welday’s world, terrorists and their victims are morally equivalent.

CAIR’s support for terrorism, murder (including convicted cop-killers, like H. Rap Brown), anti-Semitism, and assassination fatwas. against moderate Muslim-Americans here, apparently does not phase the Bush campaign and its hand-picked representative, Welday.

BUSH AIDE’S FRIENDS HONOR WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBER

While Welday was pandering to this extremist group, the audience was given fliers for CAIR-Michigan’s upcoming annual “Ramadan Fundraising Iftar” Dinner, featuring keynote speaker, Imam Siraj Wahhaj.

If you’re unsure whether CAIR supports terror, Wahhaj should seal the deal.  An  unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Wahhaj served as a character witness for the “Blind Cleric,” Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in the bombing.  Wahhaj was tight with four of those convicted in the bombing, two of whom were his mosque congregants.

In a 1991 speech before the Islamic Association of North Texas, Wahhaj a/k/a “Jeffrey 12X” (from his Nation of Islam days) called Operation Desert Storm, “one of the most diabolical plots ever in the annals of history” and predicted that America will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.”

That is whom Bush representative Welday’s “democratic friends” will be honoring.

BUSH AIDE’S FRIENDS:  CAIR-MICHIGAN’S ESTEEMED LEADERSHIP

Then there’s the esteemed CAIR-Michigan “friends” with most of whom Welday appeared on the podium:

• Haaris J. Ahmad – A lawyer for Wayne County, Michigan, Ahmad was CAIR-Michigan’s executive director, and led protests against the detention of the-now deported Rabbih Haddad, whose charity was shut down by President Bush for funding Al-Qaeda.

In 2003, Ahmad surreptitiously called my Detroit radio show to defend indicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian’s fundraising for Islamic Jihad’s homicide bombings, saying it was “free speech.”  That “free speech” included the murder of American college student Alisa Flatow.  When I outed his identity, he hung up.

Ahmad named the law firm he operated out of his home, “Andalusia Legal, PC.”  Andalusia—or al-Andalus—is the Arabic name given the Iberian Peninsula by its Muslim conquerors and refers to both the Muslim caliphate and the general period of Muslim rule.  Those who use the term are generally those who wish Spain and the rest of the world still remained under Muslim rule and desire a regression to that.

• Shereef Akeel – CAIR-Michigan’s lawyer, Akeel is the Johnny

Cochran-esque ambulance-chaser of Detroit’s radical Islamists.  I am one of many who have been the recipients of his absurd, threatening letters, attempting to silence those who expose his extremist cohorts and clients with nuisance lawsuits.  Now, Akeel has found the ultimate pot-of-gold in Islamist litigation:  He filed a class-action lawsuit against American taxpayers on behalf of countless Abu Ghraib prisoners.

He is working the case with his best friend, FBI investigatee Mohammed Alomari, the author of countless anti-Semitic, anti-American conspiracy theorist texts.  Among other things, Alomari is under investigation because he is tied to LIFE for Relief and Development, an organization which laundered money to HAMAS and is believed to help fund Iraqi uprisings against US soldiers.

• Najah Bazzy –At Sunday’s event, she proudly proclaimed from the podium that she’s “embarrassed” to be an American.  I’m embarrassed she’s American, too.  Glamour Magazine proudly featured her as its model Islamic-American poster girl.  Bazzy was a head Muslim transcultural nurse at Oakwood Hospital, which was raided for furnishing fraudulent Medicaid coverage for the deliveries of pregnant Muslim foreigners. Draw your own conclusions.  Welday, by the way, didn’t respond to Bazzy’s “embarrassed to be an American” comment.

• Yahyah Basha –Dr. Basha, who also appeared, at the “personal request” of the Bush White House, was the national president of the now-defunct, extremist American Muslim Council, now defunct because its founder and Chairman, Abdurahman Alamoudi, sits in jail for involvement with terrorists and for plotting to kill the Saudi Crown Prince (paid to do so by Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi).  AMC honored, supported, and endorsed terrorists tied to HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, and the like.  Basha is now president of the American Muslim Alliance, another radical group.  Incredibly, Welday’s GOP Committee is located in Basha’s Royal Oak, Michigan building.  One wonders what the rental deal is, what Basha got in return.It’s tough to be on top of everything when you’re helping connect the Prez with terror supporters.  Maybe that’s why a recent FDA inspection of his nearby facility revealed “serious compromise in the quality of the mammography services offered.”

BUSH AIDE, WELDAY’S HISTORY OF TERROR-PANDERING

Welday, who hopes to run for Congress, isn’t new to the terror-pander industry.  As chief of staff to Congressman Joe Knollenberg (R-Michigan), he sought $268 million in tax-funds for Hezbollah-controlled Southern Lebanon, at the request of Jim Zogby of the Arab-American Institute (who also heads up Arab-American Democrats and was a Gore campaign senior advisor).  That’s almost a million for every U.S. Marine Hezbollah murdered.  Welday’s boss, Knollenberg, was repaid for this effort, receiving big campaign dollars from Nijad Fares, son of Hezbollah-backed Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Issam Fares.

But Welday isn’t the only key Bush aide and GOP leader to pander to Islamist extremists.  While Welday was sucking up in Michigan, a giant sucking sound was heard in Ohio, where GOP Chairman, Robert T. Bennett, was making similar comments at an Ohio CAIR forum.

Despite his drooling and gushing, the Muslim audience loudly booed Welday, anyway.  And polls show the majority of Muslims and Arabs aren’t voting for Bush.  (Even when they did, in 2000, Bush lost Michigan, home to America’s largest Muslim bloc, by TEN percentage points.)  Welday’s unseemly, fruitless pursuit of their votes—especially those associated with CAIR—at any cost, smells of a jilted ex-girlfriend who keeps coming back for more jilting.

Some people will do anything to get votes in a swing-state.  In parts of Nevada, the profession is even legal.

Remember President Bush’s oft-repeated, “You’re either on our side or the terrorists’ side”?  When Bush’s key Michigan campaign aide pays homage to Islamist terror-supporters, which side is he on?

It’s a question Confucius might ask.  But no-one can answer