"Since Jimmy Carter ordered a brave and risky but failed military mission into Iran, that was a cheap shot on the part of someone who has never had anything to do with the military.
"Moreover, Jimmy Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel and played a major role in reducing the number of Africans stricken by the Guinea worm from 3.5 million to 1,100. So Romney, who has mainly been sending our jobs overseas, isn't good enough to shine Carter's shoes."
Cole is not a partisan politician. He is a careful, passionate scholar. But he is obviously worried about the 2012 presidential campaign, which could lead to a President Mitt Romney. In his blog, Cole offered this Romney gem from a Republican primary debate in 2007:
"Romney: We'll move everything to get him. But I don't want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person -- Osama bin Laden -- because after we get him, there's going to be another and another.
"This is about Shia and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.
"They ultimately want to bring down the United States of America."
Mull over the political ignorance and simplicity exposed in that comment. To Romney, Muslims are all alike, "Shia and Sunni, Hezbollah and Hamas and Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood."
There is more from Tuesday's blog posting from a clearly agitated Professor Cole as he considers the presence of a President Romney in the White House:
"The real problem with Romney is not that he would not have taken out Bin Laden. It is that he sees the Muslim world as in the grip of a congeries of pan-Islamic Caliphate movements against which he wants to wage a Mormon jihad with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money.
"But in fact almost none of the movements he mentions has anything to do with al-Qaeda or a Caliphate. Romney supported Hosni Mubarak to the hilt and opposed the Arab Spring. He doesn't understand the youth movements sweeping the Arab world. He lumps all kinds of unrelated, and changing, Muslim movements together with al-Qaeda.
"He doesn't even seem to understand that if he works to get rid of the al-Assad regime in Syria, he likely will be bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power there, one of the groups he is sworn to fight as fiercely as he would Bin Laden.
"The problem with Romney is that when it comes to the Muslim world, he doesn't have the slightest idea what he is talking about, and seems intent on alienating 1.5 billion Muslims, a fifth of the world. He wanted to substitute a crazy conspiracy theory for a tactical approach to getting Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership.
"In this regard, the Obama campaign has correctly nailed him, but they haven't gone far enough in emphasizing the truly creepy character of his [Romney's] obsession with Muslims in general, far beyond the fringe al-Qaeda element."
How does this political campaign resonate with the United Methodist General Conference?
As a start, the two issues are joined with strong feelings on each side.
Delegates to the General Conference prepared a divestment resolution to submit to the committee responsible for considering financial matters. The resolution had been developed from resolutions from several national agencies and seven regional conferences.
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