Leon T. Hadar of the Cato Institute does a pretty good job laying into the Islamophobia of many “Tea Party” candidates:

Would you like a spot of Islamophobia in your tea? It seems that a few of the Tea Party’s representatives in the midterm elections concluded that voters would like their favorite drink brewed with very hot anti-Muslim spices.

“He is the only Muslim member of congress,” Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips, a Tennessee attorney, wrote in an e-mail to supporters in which he urged them to help defeat Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) because of his Muslim faith. “The Quran in no uncertain terms says some wonderful things like, ‘Kill the infidels’,” wrote Phillips. “I have a real problem with people who want to kill me just because I’m the infidel,” he continued, expressing support for Ellison’s opponent, Lynne Torgerson, an independent candidate.

“What do I know of Islam?” Torgerson wrote on her website. “Well, I know of 9/11. Nineteen (19) men from Saudi Arabia, all Muslim, hijacked planes and flew into the two (2) World Trade Towers murdering thousands of people, and tried to fly into our Pentagon. … People say that we can’t include the moderate, peace loving Muslims. Well, I agree. But, who are they? … I cannot tell. It is not for me to go and try and find them. Rather, it is their duty to stand up and identify themselves, if there are any.” Case closed.

Angle responded that “we’re talking about a militant terrorist situation, which I believe it isn’t a widespread thing, but it is enough that we need to address, and we have been addressing, it.” Muslims, she suggested, have already imposed their religious law on areas of the country. “My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law,” she explained. “It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”

While Dearborn, Michigan, does have a thriving Muslim community, Frankford, Texas, which was annexed to Dallas in 1975, doesn’t. According to Wikipedia, Frankford now consists only of a small church and cemetery. Dearborn mayor Jack O’Reilly, who criticized Angle for her comments, noted that there was no Sharia law in Dearborn and the issue was never raised by residents. “Muslims have been practicing their faith in our community for almost 90 years without incident or conflict,” he said. “To suggest that they have taken over ignores the fact that Dearborn hosts seven mosques and 60 Christian churches.” Well, never mind.