NR has taken an interest in the race for attorney general in Missouri. State AGs have become increasingly important in our constitutional politics, and the Republican primary there pits Josh Hawley, a solid conservative, against Kurt Schaefer, who is. . . not. That’s why a lot of conservatives, including NR’s editors, have endorsed Hawley.
Schaefer is now attacking Hawley because he worked for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented a Muslim prisoner who wanted to grow a beard. The prisoner was nobody’s idea of a sympathetic client: He slit an ex-girlfriend’s throat, has spoken of waging jihad, and threatened George W. Bush’s daughters. But he also had a solid legal case on this one issue, and won unanimously in front of the Supreme Court. The decision was written by Justice Samuel Alito.
Here’s how Schaefer’s ad describes the case: “Josh Hawley sued law enforcement so Muhammad could practice radical Islam. . . . Josh Hawley worked for a terrorist. He should never work for Missouri.” It turns out, though, that Hawley didn’t work on the case. A media fact-checker has therefore concluded, “The ‘Josh Hawley worked for a terrorist’ ad is not true.” Even if he had worked on the case, though, “practice radical Islam” is a pretty misleading substitute for “grow a beard.” Schaefer is apparently betting that a majority of Missouri Republican voters are rubes.
Kurt Schaefer's Dumb Attack on Josh Hawley