White House Searching For Common Ground With Muslims

Rashad Hussain, 31, a White House lawyer, was appointed to become the United States' special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times

White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S. -- New York Times

When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them. After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign, never visiting an American mosque and describing the false claim that he was Muslim as a “smear” on his Web site.

Nearly a year later, Mr. Obama has yet to set foot in an American mosque. And he still has not met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders. But less publicly, his administration has reached out to this politically isolated constituency in a sustained and widening effort that has left even skeptics surprised.

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My Comment: I am shocked .... NOT.

But Daniel Pipes gives an accurate assessment when he remarks that President Obama's policy is just an extension of what President Bush was doing when he was in office .... with far more similarities than what the New York Times reporter is willing to admit.

As to what is my take, as long as there are a sizable number of Muslims who wish to pursue Jihad and Holy war against non-Muslims, all the outreach that you can do will have little if any impact on a community that either chooses to ignore such extremists, or who are tacitly and privately supporting their religious objectives.