Hillary Clinton campaigned in Indiana on Sunday with Rep. [crscore]Andre Carson[/crscore], a Muslim member of the House who has said that the American education system should model itself on the Quran-based system used in Islamic madrassas.
Carson appeared with Clinton at the Lincoln Square Pancake House in Indianapolis where he joked about running on front-runner’s ticket as Vice President.
As Clinton greeted diners, Carson trailed her and posed for pictures. At one point he got down on one knee to get a better angle for a picture. Clinton exclaimed “Oh look at you!”
Carson turned to reporters and joked, “Don’t forget, Carson-Clinton!”
The Democrat is not among those mentioned as being on Clinton’s short list for VP. But if he were to make the cut, his past suggestions for reforming the U.S. education system and about the 9/11 attacks would certainly provide fodder for Republicans.
Speaking at the 37th annual Islamic Circle of North America-Muslim American Society convention in May 2012, Carson asserted that U.S. education system should implement the model used in madrassas, the Islamic schools that use curriculum based on the Quran. (RELATED: Rep. Carson: America’s Schools Should Use Madrassas As Model)
“America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged, where the foundation is the Quran. And that model that we are pushing in some of our schools meets the multiple needs of students,” Carson told convention attendees.
The comments generated some controversy at the time, as did the lawmaker’s association with the Islamic Circle of North America and Muslim American Society, both of which have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Carson responded to the controversy saying that his remarks were intended to “call attention to the fact that faith-based schools throughout this country have excelled because of innovative instructional methods and a willingness to engage different learning styles.”
In a statement to the Huffington Post at the time, he said that he does not believe that any particular faith “should be the foundation of our public schools,” but that “it is important that we take note of the instructional tools these schools utilize to empower their young people.”
One overlooked part of Carson’s speech that day was his complaint that the 9/11 attacks were “tough on Muslims.”
“Now 9/11 was tough on Muslims,” he said. “Those of us who were in the workplace faced exacerbated prejudice, unrelenting bias, and in many cases some of us were terminated from our jobs.”
“It was tough to be a Muslim in the workplace,” Carson added, while failing to address the more than 3,000 Americans who were killed that day in their workplaces at the World Trade Center and Pentagon by Islamic terrorists.
Watch Carson’s remarks during his 2012 speech:
