Marathon Pundit: Democrats' post-election news dump: Tariq Ramadan to be allowed in the US

Although today is not a Friday, Barack Obama's State Department chose today, the day after the Democrats' Massachusetts debacle, to dump some potentially embarrassing news.

From AP:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders enabling the re-entry of professors Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University in England and Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa once they obtain required admittance documents, department spokesman Darby Holladay said.

Clinton "has chosen to exercise her exemption authority for the benefit of Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib," Holladay said. "We'll let that action speak for itself." In a prepared statement, Holladay noted the change in U.S. posture since both professors, who are frequently invited to the United States to lecture, were denied admittance after making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy. Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

In 2004, the U.S. government blocked the entry of Islamist Tariq Ramadan because he provided "material support to a terrorist organization." Middle Eastern studies scholar Daniel Pipes tells us. Ramada was to take up professorship at the University of Notre Dame.

Although Pipes is not surprised by this development, he is concerned about the sleaziness of it, in which the State Department blamed his prior exclusion, as you read above, to "making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy."

Pipes doesn't go this far, but I will--it's another jab at former President George W. Bush. But Pipes believes that the Ramadan directive comes from the top, which means of course, President Obama.

Amazingly, the Democrats remain in campaign mode. Even when they are losing campaigns.

Related post:

Obama's Friday news dump: Ft. Hood was terrorism

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