Guess Who Else Tolerates Gravel's Apologies for Hamas, Hezbollah?

I must admit that when I first began reading Jonathan's post about fellow Democrats' benign neglect of the Hamas-loving Mike Gravel, I thought, "So they ignored the yahoo in the room. Big deal, politicians do that all the time." But then Jonathan got me with the line, "Had he made analogous charges or observations as starkly offensive to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians or gays, can you imagine the other Democrats remaining silent? Don’t you think that someone would have challenged him?"

Jonathan is absolutely right. The silence here is damning. And so is this press release, which appeared in my inbox late yesterday afternoon:

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MIKE GRAVEL
TO SPEAK AT MPAC CONVENTION ON DEC. 15

(Los Angeles - 11/30/07) -- The Muslim Public Affairs Council today announced that Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel will be a keynote speaker at its seventh annual convention on December 15 in Long Beach, CA.

A two-term U.S. Senator from Alaska, Gravel is best known for his blunt, no-nonsense approach in the Democratic Presidential debates where he's known to rail against the war in Iraq with the same outrage he used to condemn the one in Vietnam. In 1971, Gravel ordered the top-secret "Pentagon Papers" - a series of secret government reports that chronicled United States failures in Vietnam - into the Congressional Record and then went on to lead a one-man filibuster in the Senate that led to the end the military draft in 1973.

SEE: Mike Gravel's Comments During the 3rd Democratic Presidential Debate

SEE: "Mike Gravel, An Anti-War Crusader for Two Generations" (Kansas City Star, 11/21/07)

Gravel has been written off by media commentators as unelectable and has little money to finance his White House bid, but he has been able to keep his hopes alive through YouTube and the Internet. Low in the polls, he was blocked from the two most recent Democratic debates in October and November. His primary reason for running for the presidency is to advance his agenda for direct national elections on issues, called the "National Initiative."

SEE ALSO: Interview with Mike Gravel on "This is America with Dennis Wholey"

"The whole reason I am running is to empower the people," Gravel told AFP. "What the people need to be able to do is to be put in position so they can vote on the policies issues that affect their lives."

MPAC invited all of the Presidential candidates from both parties to address the Muslim American community at the annual convention. To date, Gravel is the only candidate who has accepted....

This is just a bad, bad move on MPAC's part. Fine -- the organization invited all the candidates, and only Gravel said yes. Sure, it should let Gravel, and any other candidate who wants to speak, get a spot at its convention. But to issue a gushing press release extolling the virtues of a candidate who just so happens to be an apologist for two Muslim terrorist organizations ... well, let's just say that's going to do very little to debunk the pernicious stereotypes that MPAC ostensibly exists to counter.