http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007 ... s-cabinet/
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
MITT ROMNEY
Big Muslims-in-the-Cabinet Roundup
I'll have more on the Mansour Ijaz Christian Science Monitor piece in the near future, but for now, I can say that after talking with Ijaz, he stands by his account in the CSM 100 percent, and contends there is no way that Mitt Romney could have misinterepreted or misheard his question.
He is certain that his question was whether Romney would "consider" including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, and that there was no aspect of quotas, guarantees, or promises to the question. He asked the question, Romney repeated the question so that everyone in the room could hear, and Ijaz clarified when Romney believed the question was whether he would have Muslim advisors regarding the war on terror.
He stands by his description of Romney's answer including the claim that Romney rejected the idea of a Muslim cabinet member based on the "numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population."
Romney remembers the question differently, telling MSNBC earlier today that "No, that's not what I said. His question was, Did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet in order to confront radical jihad, or would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet?' And I said no, I don't think you need a Muslim in the Cabinet to take on radical jihad any more than we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature."
