YALLA VOTE ‘08 Our Voice. Our Future.

Mr. Landham, the Libertarian Party of Kentucky’s candidate for U.S. Senate, finds himself in hot water recently. IN comments made to the Courier-Journal on July 21, Landham proves himself to be a bigot of the first degree, at least when it comes to Arab Americans. Here’s how columnist Joseph Gerth, in his Time Warp, reported Sonny Landham’s comments:

He wants to release oil from the strategic oil reserve, drill in areas of the U.S. currently off-limits to the oil companies and then try to persuade OPEC to cut the price of oil. What if it doesn’t?

“We should go and bomb those camel-dung shovelers back into the sand,” Landham said. “I said ‘camel-dung shovelers.’ Make sure you put that in the newspaper.”

Wow. And that was only one of the epithets he used.

As if that weren’t enough, Landham went on air with The Weekly Filibuster, an Internet-based, political talk radio show, and clarified his stance on Arabs and Arab Americans. I’ll pull some excerpts from the transcript after the cut, for you (thanks to the Independent Political Report for publishing the entire transcript here):

Sonny Landham: We’ve come up with a plan which is, if you’ve been to the website, which is switch and drill. And that is, we have to drill everywhere that we can, but also Bush needs to sign the executive order to open up the federal oil reserve which can pump, I believe 4.4 million barrels a day, 13 days after he signs that order. Also, we should be taking, uh, half of what Iraq has produced, which is a million and a half barrels a day, we should be taking 750,000 barrels of oil a day from them at the rate of forty dollars a barrel to repay the trillion plus debt that they have towards us over the war and the rebuilding of their infrastructure while our infrastructure, uh, deteriorates badly.

That’s the wind-up. It gets worse…

Sonny Landham: Matt, there has been a holy war going for thousands, and thousands, and thousands of years. Long before we were ever thought of. The Muslims look at infidels. Anyone who is not a Muslim is an infidel. Whether you are a Jew, a Bhuddist, a Catholic, a Protestant, or an atheist, you are still an infidel. They will lie to you, and they will not tell you the truth because it is not a sin for a Muslim to lie to a infidel.

And then he abandons all pretense at civility and goes straight to the heart of what he beleives:

Sonny Landham: If I had my way, I would stop Arabs coming into this country. And I would take all, uh, non citizens of the United States, finger printing them, and having a complete background check before they set foot into this country.

Matt Cavedon: How about Lebanese Christians and Arabs who aren’t Muslims?

Sonny Landham: What did I just say? All people. I said no Arabs into this country. Look, it wasn’t a blonde, blue eyed, fair skin person who flew those planes into the twin towers on 9/11.

Now, here’s a question from one Tom Dec, who refers back to the original newspaper article…

Tom Dec: …Uh, um, why do you support bombing the OPEC countries if they don’t turn over oil to us, and how exactly is that a libertarian position?

Sonny Landham: Uh, this, that was not quite what I said. My first statement was, do the steps that we have in the switch and drill, and somebody said, well that’s not my diplomatic way and if that doesn’t work, I said I would bomb those camel dung-shovelers back into the sand, and you’re going to wind up having to do it.

Are you still uncertain as to whether this is the right candidate for you? Because there’s more.

Caller: I’m an Arab woman. Do you hate me?

Sonny Landham: I don’t hate you, honey. I don’t hate anybody.

Caller: Well isn’t that a little contradictory to what you’ve been saying all week?

Sonny Landham: When it comes to foreign policy strategy, I’m a realist and not a liberal.

Caller: So realistically, I shovel camel dung?

Sonny Landham: Honey, I don’t–or ma’am, I don’t know what you do.

Caller: Then how can you say that my people collectively shovel camel dung?

Sonny Landham: It’s not really a big interest to me. My interest is taking care of America and American citizens.

Caller: Yes, but I’m also an American citizen, and I think that what you said is completely politically incorrect. And as I a realistic foreign policy-making man, you should know that.

Sonny Landham: Uh, I don’t believe that–

Caller: You will never gain anyone’s respect saying that collectively about a people

Sonny Landham: …say what you mean and mean what you say. Now, what’s your next question?

Caller: That’s it, I’m done.

Well, if the Libertarian Party has a sane bone in its political body, they’ll tell Sonny Landham he’s done, as well.