Sununu and Boustany

by: hannah

Sat Sep 12, 2009 at 08:22:02 AM EDT

Well, first and most obviously, there's an apparent preference for the odd-man out status, which leads them to emphasize their Lebanese-born grandfathers and to designate themselves as Arab-Americans, albeit both are Christians, rather than followers of Islam.

As an immigrant myself, that strikes me as passing strange, especially now that a large segment of the Republican party seems fixated on differentiating between native and alien.

LaHood received the Najeeb Halaby Award for Public Service, presented by the only American of Arab heritage in the U.S. Senate, New Hampshire's John E. Sununu. The award is bestowed annually on an Arab American who has excelled in public service and has shown a strong pride in his or her ethnic heritage. It is named after the late Najeeb Halaby, father of Queen Noor of Jordan, who was chief executive officer of Pan American World Airways in the 1960s and headed the Federal Aviation Administration under President Kennedy.

How much

"inclusion, cultural understanding and cooperation across ethnic, racial and religious lines"

Certainly, Boustany and the Sununus have that in common.  Also in common is the financial support for their political campaigns brought to them courtesy of one Khaled Saffuri, whose organizational skills seem quite stupendous, extending as they do from Grover Norquist's Islamic Institute to Meridian Strategies, a Washington political consulting firm.  Other affiliations included:
National Muslims for a Better America
American Muslim Council
Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation
Collier Shannon Scott
Lexington Group
Greenberg Traurig
the latter two constituting Saffuri's connection to Jack Abramoff.

Although Khaled Saffuri seems to have used all these venues to funnel political contributions to Sununu and the recently prominent Boustany, the social network he created is probably more important to their advancement.  Moreover, given their rather mediocre legislative records on behalf of this latest contingent of hyphenated Americans (Boustany's lame rebuttal to the President on health care was not an exception), not to mention the citizens in their respective states, it almost seems as if these heritage Arabs are primarily in it for the self-promotion.

Certainly, that would explain Boustany's hob-nobbing with Ambassadors to raise money for his campaigns, as well as, along with Sununu, collecting honoraria for his service on the Board of the Arab American National Museum, courtesy of the Chevron PAC.  Which, incidentally, raises the question as to the extent to which such eleemosynary institutions are being used to funnel rewards for what ends up being mostly lip-service. 'Cause there's no question these honored public servants are, for the most part, ineffective, unless you want to count keeping a stable of pollsters, consultants and publicists well fed a success.

Maybe the Republican party should be referred to as the party of, by and for con-men, running a new con game on the voters and the money bags.  Serves Boustany right that he was taken in by a couple of Brits selling him a "lordship."