Republicans are afraid that Anaheim residents might mistake Bill Dalati as a white guy. His name is, after all, Bill. That’s why they’ve started a smear campaign against him.
From today’s Los Angeles Times:
A state Republican party leader has roiled a sleepy Anaheim City Council race with allegations that an Arab American candidate is anti-American and supports extremist groups.
The accusations against Bill Dalati, an insurance agent who was born in Syria and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1987, surfaced last week in a letter from former state Republican Party chairman Shawn Steel and on various websites. On the OC Blog, a politically conservative website, the headline atop the letter opposing Dalati’s candidacy read “Something Scary in Anaheim.”
Shawn Steel’s only support for calling Dalati anti-American is Dalati’s support for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is the largest Muslim civil rights group in the country and according to the Times “largely viewed as a mainstream organization.â€Â
And then Shawn’s letter is re-published on OC Blog by John Lewis, who is employed by Bob Hernadez (Dalati’s opponent).
This anti-American crap is pretty despicableâ€â€even for these guys. Call him a social liberal, or a RINO, but questioning his love for this country after investing his life into his Anaheim business and then $200,000 of the money he made there into his council race, is pretty low.
More from the Times:
“I wanted to give [the Arab and Muslim population in Anaheim] hope and empower them,” [Dalati] said. “We love this country, we would die for this country. It’s given us more than our country. We want to make it better.”
That sounds pretty American to me.
[OC Blog’s original post on the non-issue]
[Today’s OC Blog post on the non-issue]
[The Los Angeles Times story on the non-issue]
Well, hopefully this reveals to Dalati the true face of the GOP in OC… as pure, lily white!
How could they turn on one of their own, just because he’s active in CAIR? Oh wait, that’s right! George Bush doesn’t care about Muslim people! (pardon my twist on Kanye West)
I mean, the GOP’s even helping supposed “liberal RINO” Lincoln Chafee hold onto his Senate seat in RI, and we ALL know about what the CA GOP is doing for “RINO” Lynn Daucher… But I guess if we’re talking about a goodstanding American Muslim, then the GOP couldn’t support “someone like that”!
But then again, what else could we expect from the “Macaca” Party?
Hey, Bill seems like a nice guy.
The letter was totally unwarranted, but… much like politics… it doesn’t surprise me.
If I was running against one of John Lewis’ candidates he’d probably draw up some letter and make a fuss accusing me of being anti-California because I was born in a “foreign” state.