Michael Goldfarb v. John Kerry
Goldfarb gives John Kerry a lesson on Islamic history:
Among the accusations he leveled this morning, Senator Kerry said Senator McCain "confuses the history going back to 682 of what has happened to Sunni and Shia." Now, we at the McCain Report have been receiving a great number of panicked emails from supporters all morning, deeply troubled by Senator Kerry's suggestion that Senator McCain is anything less than totally familiar with the finer points of 7th century Islamic history. And frankly, we were worried too, at first. After all, we know that -- more than keeping America safe from its enemies abroad, more than getting our economy back on track, more than breaking through the partisan gridlock that is preventing Washington from solving the problems we as a nation face -- Americans want, nay demand, that their next Commander in Chief is intimately familiar with the "history going back to 682 of what has happened to the Sunni and Shia."
There's only one thing that gives us pause. The date Senator Kerry cited this morning -- 682 A.D. -- has no significance in explaining the sectarian schism between Sunnis and Shiites. Shiites trace the split to 632 A.D. -- the year that Muhammed died -- not 682. The battle of Karbala -- one of the most important battles in the history of Islam, commemorated by Shia Muslims the world over during the holiday of Ashura -- took place in 680 A.D. Still two years off. Now, obviously, it would be more than a bit ironic if it turned out that Senator Kerry himself -- in the midst of pompously trying to show off his superior knowledge and erudition -- got confused about the history of the Sunni-Shiite schism. But based on his adroit performance in the 2004 presidential campaign, we're sure that he'd never commit such a gaffe.
Still, we can't help but wonder -- just what exactly was Senator Kerry talking about?