The case against Rubio grows

If you listen to Marco Rubio in the GOP presidential debates, he can sound overwhelmingly impressive.

He's obviously very intelligent, quick on his feet and super-articulate.

But the case against him is strong on several fronts – much more than the fact that he is emerging as the new consensus candidate for the Republican establishment in the wake of the Jeb Bush implosion.

It also goes far beyond his tone-deaf insistence on "comprehensive immigration reform" (read: amnesty) as a key member of the Gang of Eight.

It's more disturbing than his classic neocon interventionist policy of regime change at all costs in Syria – while also fighting ISIS, the biggest threat to the presidency of Bashar Assad.

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It's worse than what appears to me to be his apparent ineligibility for the White House as the son of two – not one – non-citizens at the time of his birth.

A new question for me is this: If he's as smart as he appears, why did Rubio just name to his advisory panel on matters of religious liberty Rick Warren?

I got to know Rick Warren several years ago when he was visiting Syria's Bashar Assad, the man Rubio is hell-bent on deposing, and proclaiming him to be a true guardian of religious liberty.

It wasn't true that Assad was a religious-liberties icon then, nor is it true that he is the monster Rubio and Barack Obama portray him as now. By Middle East standards, he's just your average anti-Semitic, authoritarian thug. As a religious minority himself (Alawite), he is an enemy of the predominantly Sunni Middle East majority. In his favor, he doesn't persecute Christians. Neither does he permit Jews to visit his country, as we found out when a former WND reporter tried. He is also a strong ally of Iran – one might even accurately describe him at this point in his regime as a "puppet" of the Revolutionary Islamic Republic on the verge of joining the nuclear club.

With Warren's track record of coddling Assad and Rubio's desire to eliminate him from this earthly plane, something doesn't make sense here. Perhaps Rubio is willing to overlook such a minor difference in perspective because of the Southern California mega-church leader's influence and popularity among mostly unsophisticated evangelicals.

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But the choice of Warren as a guru on religious-liberty issues is even more disturbing for another reason.

The biggest threat to religious liberty in the world today – in fact all liberty – is the one posed by Islamic jihadist ideology and force.

For many years now, Warren has been about the work of "building bridges" with some of the worst examples of Islamic jihadist ideology and force.

For instance, in 2009, as part of an effort for dialogue with Muslims and cooperation on humanitarian projects, Warren was the keynote speaker at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim Brotherhood front group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terrorist funding trial in U.S. history. Federal prosecutors said that ISNA had an "intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood," and were "intimately connected" with the Holy Land Foundation, the Hamas-funding charity – "and its assigned task of providing financial support to Hamas."

To top it off, Warren is also a close friend of on-again-off-again pop star Cat Stevens, now known exclusively as Yusuf Islam. In 2010, two "Nasheeds," or lyrics without music – usually performed a cappella or with percussion accompaniment only – were posted on YouTube. In one of them, Islam sings this lovely diddy:

"What are you saying?
What are you saying?
I'm praying to Allah
To give us victory
Over the kuffar."

"Kuffars" are non-believers – infidels, including Christians and Jews.

In 2000, Islam was booted out of Israel for earlier giving tens of thousands of dollars to Hamas.

In 1988, on a British TV show, he seemed to support the Iranian fatwa (call to death) against novelist Salman Rushdie whose book "The Satanic Verses" was ruled blasphemous to Muslims. Asked if he would attend a demonstration at which Rushdie would be burned in effigy, the former Cat Stevens replied: "I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing.''

He claimed later his comment was misunderstood and taken out of context.

He served a stint on the U.S. government's no-fly list and was also linked with funding Omer Abdel-Rahman, the blind Egyptian sheikh convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting to bomb New York City landmarks. Islam's response to the allegation was that he never "knowingly" funded terrorists.

But perhaps Rick Warren is willing to overlook a record like that because Cat Stevens is, after all, an inductee in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

That might be Rick Warren's excuse. But what is Marco Rubio's?

Joseph Farah's previous writing on Rick Warren:

'America's Pastor' misquoting Bible, again
Rick Warren meets Cat Stevens
Rick Warren's bridge to Islam
Rick Warren and the Muslim Brotherhood
I agree with Rick Warren!
Rick Warren does it, again
Obama and the abortion debate
Have-it-your-way Christianity
America's wishy-washy pastors
'Try Jesus for 60 days'
An open letter to Rick Warren
Who gets the glory?
Give the glory to God!
There goes Rick Warren, again
Rick Warren's distortions of reality
Global warming and Christian discernment
Why Warren embraces Hillary
Rick Warren's Inquisition
Begging forgiveness of Islam?
Junk Christianity
Rick Warren says I'm wrong, again
The last Rick Warren column
Rick Warren: Is he or isn't he?
There you go, again, Rick Warren!
Rick Warren continues to deceive
Rick Warren says he's sorry
Warren defender: Change the subject
Rick Warren on Syria: 'A moderate country'
Calling Rick Warren!
Rick Warren disciples: Where are you?
Megapastor Rick Warren's Damascus Road experience
The purpose-driven lie
False prophets of evangelicalism

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