Remember Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), recently indicted on theft of campaign funds? Well, it turns out that he’s really more or less an unprincipled bastard, at least from this corner of the United States. Via NPR:
A Republican congressman who should have waltzed to re-election is now in the fight of his career. Duncan Hunter, who has represented an inland Southern California district for a decade, was indicted in August on charges of using a quarter of a million dollars in campaign funds for personal expenses.
As the race grows tighter, Hunter is attacking his Democratic challenger for his Palestinian heritage. A controversial television ad accuses Ammar Campa-Najjar of trying to “infiltrate” Congress. It says that Campa-Najjar changed his name to hide his family’s connection to terrorism. It points out that his grandfather was part of the deadly attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Campa-Najjar never knew his grandfather, who was killed by Israeli agents 16 years before the candidate was born. This is just one of the commercial’s questionable associations. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave the ad its worst rating: 4 Pinocchios, which it defines as “a whopper.” …
“He changed his name from Ammar Yasser Najjar to Ammar Campa-Najjar,” said Hunter, “so he sounds Hispanic. … That is how hard, by the way, that the radical Muslims are trying to infiltrate the U.S. government.”
Actually, Ammar Campa-Najjar is Christian. And Campa is his Hispanic mother’s family name.
Here’s a commercial giving many of the same claims. Notice the music, which should engender a rapid pulse and System 1 thinking.
Sad times for a Republican Party that wants to believe it holds the moral high ground.
