Newt: America is under attack by atheist Islamists.

[madfoot]

"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52023.html

[roho76]

Would he rather they turn out to be corrupt politicians who cheat on their significant others while praising Jesus and talking about high moral standards?

[EndDaFed]

He is trying to pander to the bone head neoconservatives. Just bring up the fact that he cheated oh his wife when she had cancer. That will turn them away from him.

[ChaosControl]

It is disturbing people take this guy serious, the stuff he says looks like it came from the onion.
Heck the actual onion article about him seemed more realistic than the stuff he actually says.

[eduardo89]

Atheist islamists? What the hell is that?

[ExPatPaki]

I'd actually like to live under atheist Islamist rule.

[specsaregood]

Atheist islamists? What the hell is that?

I hate giving this douche the benefit of the doubt, but I reckon he was making a list of potential futures. Or perhaps forgot to add the word "or". Put an "or" where the comma is like so:

"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country OR potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

Perhaps our resident punctuation nazi can step in here and make a ruling. Can the comma act like an "or" being used to list distinct items?

[eduardo89]

I would think a comma would make the sentence mean that the country could be ruled by atheists, potentially atheists that are radical islamists.

[acptulsa]

What it once meant to be an American. When I hear Newt say it, I get the feeling he's nostalgic for the days when it didn't matter how crappy Ford and Chevy both were, you bought one or the other anyway; when Hearst and Luce news stories both sucked, but you read one or the other anyway, and both political parties sucked, but you voted for whomever came out of their smoke-filled rooms anyway.

Sorry we're letting you down, Newt.

[ExPatPaki]

Maybe Newt is referring to this:

Unlike the Russian Orthodox Christian church, the Muslims of the Soviet Union originally encountered a larger degree of religious freedom under the new Bolshevik rule. Vladimir Lenin oversaw the return of religious artifacts, such as the Uthman Quran,[4] the foundations of court systems using principles of Islamic law which ran alongside the Communist legal system,[4] Jadids and other "Islamic socialists" were given positions of power,[4] an affirmative action system called "korenizatsiya" (nativisation) was implemented which helped the local Muslim populace,[4] while Friday, the day of Muslim religious celebration, was declared the legal day of rest throughout Central Asia.[4] Under the Tsars, Muslims were brutally repressed and the Eastern Orthodox Church was the official religion. On 24 November 1917 Lenin declared;

Muslims of Russia…all you whose mosques and prayer houses have been destroyed, whose beliefs and customs have been trampled upon by the tsars and oppressors of Russia: your beliefs and practices, your national and cultural institutions are forever free and inviolate. Know that your rights, like those of all the peoples of Russia, are under the mighty protection of the revolution.[4]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_Soviet_Union

But that all changed when Stalin came to power.