When the president of the University of Oklahoma found out that fraternity members at his school chanted racist slurs, he ordered the fraternity closed the next day and immediately initiated an investigation of the incident. Two fraternity members were expelled from the university within days.
That is how a decisive leader deals with racism and bigotry.
In Maine, Republican state Sen. Michael Willette posted numerous items on Facebook throughout 2013 denigrating Muslims and President Barack Obama, whom he wrongly called a Muslim and repeatedly accused of plotting with Muslims.
This saga began Monday when liberal blogger Mike Tipping posted one of Willette’s Facebook entries to his BDN blog. “Why haven’t I done anything about ISIS? Because I’ll deal with them at the family reunion,” read a caption superimposed over a photo of the president. Willette posted this to his Facebook page on March 1.
Shortly after Tipping’s blog post, Willette apologized for posting the picture, but not for the sentiments it promoted. “I apologize for posting this on Facebook,” Willette, of Presque Isle, said in a prepared statement. “Like too many people these days, I fell into the trap of posting something first and then thinking later.”
Willette again apologized for the post Wednesday, on the Senate floor. “That frustration led me, against my better judgment, to make several criticisms of the president that were completely inappropriate,” Willette said . He said he voted for Obama in 2008 and was frustrated by his performance as president.
“We need to show restraint, especially myself in this instance,” Willette added. “I would like to publicly apologize for my actions and ask for your forgiveness.”
On Wednesday, the Maine Republican Party issued a statement condemning Willette’s comments. “We want to be crystal clear: the Maine GOP condemns and disagrees with the substance, spirit and sentiment of Sen. Willette’s posts and believe his apology was appropriate, and necessary,” Executive Director Jason Savage said in a statement. “These posts do not reflect in any way the views of the Maine Republican Party.”
He then accused Democrats of “throwing stones from glass houses” and included a list of inappropriate statements Democrats have made.
This response is especially ironic because just seven months ago, the GOP demanded the condemnation and firing of a 20-year-old volunteer with Democrat Mike Michaud’s campaign for governor who had posted sexist and crude posts on Twitter before he began to volunteer for the campaign. The volunteer was suspended, and Michaud’s campaign apologized.
“Would Congressman Michaud himself use the worst of sexist slurs or insult entire religions with anti-Semitic remarks and crude comments about Jesus Christ? Michaud should immediately denounce these outrageous comments and fire the person who made them,” Savage said in a July 2014 press release. “I would not expect a sitting congressman and aspiring governor to allow such sexist and hate-filled behavior in his offices.”
Apply this same standard about insulting entire religions and hate-filled behavior to Willette and he must resign from the Legislature.
It turns out the post was not an isolated incident. Tipping later chronicled a long list of similarly themed Facebook posts, before Willette changed the setting on his account so it was no longer visible to the public. The posts were made in 2013, before Willette was elected to the Senate. He served in the House from 2008 to 2012.
One post said Obama would always side with the Muslim Brotherhood over Americans. In another post that shared an image about Muslims supposedly trying to change Western countries, he wrote, “Round them up and air drop them back into the rubble and hell holes from whence they came.”
In another post, he wrote that he learned, while serving in Kuwait in Desert Storm, that “the religion of Islam preaches deceit and lying for survival and to justify the survival of the Islamic religion. They are very, very good at this, and other ways of making you feel complacent and comfortable with them.”
Many Willette defenders have said his Facebook posts are funny — and true. Despite a smear campaign to the contrary, Obama is a Christian. He has authorized air strikes against Muslims, and terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was killed in a raid that Obama approved, which makes it hard to argue that he is working with terrorists. The vast majority of Muslims don’t participate in terrorism and condemn it.
Many people disagree with the president, but the hatred directed at Obama is unprecedented. That a state senator would join in the false attacks against the president and Muslims is especially troubling. That is why Republican leadership needs to stand up, apply the standards they demand of others to themselves and denounce the falsehoods and prejudices perpetuated by Willette.
