In an August 23 Foreign Policy op-ed, former Bush administration official Suhail Khan criticized Republicans - including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich - for “loudly voic[ing] their opposition” to the planned Islamic community center in Manhattan and “fanning the flames of a protest that has since spread into a more generalized criticism of Muslim institutions in the United States.”

From Khan's op-ed:

In recent weeks, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and other prominent Republicans have loudly voiced their opposition to the proposed Cordoba House project near ground zero in lower Manhattan, fanning the flames of a protest that has since spread into a more generalized criticism of Muslim institutions in the United States. But even before this month's controversy, the exodus of Muslim Americans from the Republican Party was nearly complete. In 2008, this country's more than 7 million Muslims voted in record numbers, and nearly 90 percent of their votes went to Obama.

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And though many American Muslims have grown impatient with the Democratic administration's lack of progress on issues such as civil liberties, peace between Israel and Palestine, and the unfair treatment of Muslim charities, they remain firmly in the Obama camp. Why wouldn't they? Since the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” controversy erupted last month, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio has blasted the mosque's “terrorist-sympathizing” imam; Gingrich has made statements equating Islam with Nazism.

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There are similar rays of hope for Muslim Republicans. Former Bush administration solicitor general Ted Olson, who lost his wife Barbara on 9/11, declared on Aug. 18 that “people of all religions have a right to build ... places of religious worship or study, where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws ... we don't want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith.” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an up-and-comer in the national conservative movement, recently warned against “overreacting” to the threat of terrorism and painting “all of Islam” with the brush of terrorism. “We have to bring people together,” he said. Let's hope that thoughtful voices such as Governor Christie, and not those who rely on mistrust and fear, win the day.