Zuhdi Jasser: boy, that name is familiar.
Oh come on, Spot. You never heard of him until Katie gave him a big write up Thursday.
I suppose you're right, grasshopper. Actually, it's Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, Chairman, Board of Directors. And that would be Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, an organization that advertises itself as "at home with American liberty and freedom." Spot has a box of kibble that says the "M" stands for Mohammed, which the doc is apparently ashamed of.
Katie made a big deal in the linked column about the fact that the doc was opposed to the lawsuit brought by the flying imams against US Airways, the MAC, and perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Bigot.
Here's a little more about the background of Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, from the AIFD site:
Dr. Jasser is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and served in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer from 1988-1999. He is a native of Wisconsin and graduated from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1992 with Honors in Research. He completed his medical education on a military scholarship as part of the National Health Professions Scholarship Program with the U.S. Navy. He then completed his internship in internal medicine at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda Maryland in 1993. After serving as Head, Medical Department aboard the U.S.S. El Paso from 1993-1994, Dr. Jasser completed his residency training in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He was selected to serve as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine from 1996-1997 and then served his final tour in the Navy as a staff internist in the Office of the Attending Physician for the U.S. Congress from 1997-1999. He finished his military service as a Lieutenant Commander with an Honorable Discharge in 1999. His highest military award was the Meritorious Service Medal. He is now in the private practice of internal medicine and nuclear cardiology in Phoenix Arizona.
In 2002, Dr. Jasser noted the obvious increasing American attention to Islam and Muslims and their role in the national and international war against Islamism and 'Islamo-fascists'. As a result of what he felt to be a paucity of Muslim scholarship demonstrating the synergy of American democracy and its founding principles with the religion of Islam, he set out to form AIFD. He felt that many Muslims came to America in fact somewhat similarly to our founding fathers and so many others--- seeking freedom, liberty, and the American dream in order to escape religious persecution from so-called "Islamic" lands.
Dr. Jasser is a cheesehead! Not only that, he was a doctor for Congressional representatives for a couple of years. Are you beginning to see where Dr. Jasser is coming from boys and girls? Here's a little more about Dr. Jasser. Doc Jasser actually sounds like an accomplished guy, but he's pretty conservative—voted for George Bush—and obviously has a lot invested in the American Dream. Wouldn't you have liked to know about his eleven years in the US military and his conservative politics before accepting his views of the flying imams' lawsuit from Katie? Of course you would.
It doesn't mean you would discard what Dr. Jasser has to say, but it would certainly help you understand him if you had a little more about his background. It's no secret—Spot found it readily enough—but Katie's identification of him is incomplete enough to be called misleading.
Tags: flying imams, Katherine Kersten, CAIR, American Islamic Forum for Democracy
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