Sure, every red-blooded American would want to live next door to John Wayne—to Hondo, to Sergeant Stryker—but he has passed on. And as neighbors The Three Stooges would be a laugh a minute but with insurance rates what they are—house, fire, Act of God—it would be risky and, unfortunately, Larry, Moe and Curly have also passed on. But what if it were a choice between Archie Bunker and Ibrahim Hooper, a choice between Those Were the Days and the man from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) who would ruin Archie’s days if given half the chance, a choice between We Could Use a Man Like Herbert Hoover again and whatever CAIR might impose on America; a choice between Glenn Miller and Randall Todd Royer, a choice between Stifle and Allahu akbar? How tough a decision would it be?

Archie was not known to be particularly religious. If he had had a choice between, say, Herbert Hoover and Mohammed, it would have been Hoover. It wasn’t that Archie didn’t believe in God, he did. He had his own way of expressing his beliefs. “God,” he told Edith, “made us all one true religion…which he named after his son, Christian—or Christ for short.” “If God gets sore enough at you,” he warned Edith, “he could turn your jawbone into an ass.”

He might not have been as familiar with the Bible as Hooper is with the Qur’an, but he did pick up a little here and there. He knew all about Samson. “Samson,” he said, “he takes the jawbone out of the grass and he kills the whole army of the Philippines.” If anybody had a knack for speaking in homemade Biblical parables it was Archie. He would have made a great country Sunday school teacher. The kids in Hootersville would have adored him

Obviously, Hooper is better versed in the histrionics of Islam than Archie was submersed in the King James Bible and that could trouble a prospective neighbor, one who might have had a window opened into the heart of Islam by paying attention to what has been going on in Eurabia and Dearborn, Michigan. Such a person could easily misconstrue Archie’s whole army of the Philippines to include Archie and Edith and Gloria and Barney Heffner and Barney’s dog. And if he had peeked into the Qur’an, it might have frightened him. There are verses that are difficult to explain:

Qur’an 8:60 “And make ready against the infidels all the power you can. Prepare against them whatever arms and cavalry you can muster that you may strike terror in the enemies of Allah, and others besides them not known to you.” (Others not known? Could that be the Scientologists?)

Qur’an 24:55 “Allah has promised to those among you who believe and do good work that He will make them rulers of the earth. He will establish in authority their religion—the one which he has chosen for them.”

Archie would have preferred the Reverend Felcher for a neighbor. Remember the Reverend Felcher—or was it the Reverend Fletcher? Whatever…

But Archie was a racist. That’s what they said. Who would want to live next door to a racist? Yet Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Archie on the cheek. Would Sammy have done that if Archie had been a racist? They were great friends. They had a lot of interesting conversations. One day Archie said to Sammy, “I always check with the Bible on these here things. I think that, I mean if God had meant for us to be together he’d a put us together. But look what He done. He put you (the coloreds) over in Africa, and put the rest of us in all the white countries.” And Sammy said, “Well, he must have told ‘em where we were because somebody came and got us.”

“Those were the days!”

And there were the Jews. Archie called them ‘Hebes.’ “Your Chinamen, your Krauts and your Hebes,” he would say. His lawyer’s name was Rabinowitz of Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Chan. “This is a Jewish cake,” he once said. (He must have been at a bar mitzvah—they didn’t serve pastries at Archie’s bar) “They give this to a Jewish kid before he is circumscribed.

Sure, he called the Jews ‘Hebes.’ But was he an anti-Semite—a full-blown tooth-and-nail anti-Semite? He didn’t find any of the things he said in the Bible. On the other hand, the following verses are culled from the scriptures frequented by Ibrahim Hooper: You can be the judge:

Qur’an 2:61 “Humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon the Jew and they were visited with wrath from Allah.”

Qur’an 2:64 “But you (Jews) went back on your word and were lost losers...so We said became monkeys, despised and hated. We made this punishment an example and a warning.”

Qur’an 59:14 “The Jews are devoid of sense. There is a grievous punishment awaiting them.”

Ishaq: 240 “The Jews are a nation of liars…The Jews are treacherous, lying, and evil people.”

Treacherous…lying…evil…Muslim children are told that the rocks and the trees will tell them where the Jews are hiding so the Muslims can come and kill them. Compared to this litany of malevolence and hatred…well, Archie was a teddy bear waiting to be cuddled.

When it came to women Archie was a Victorian. “What you’re looking at here,” he said, “is kind of an old-fashioned guy who really believes in the sanctity of marriage.” Pre-marital sex to Archie was ‘pre-martial’ sex. One day he told the Meathead, “I ain’t a man of carnival instinctuals like you are.” Did he respect Edith? He was no Rhett Butler. His favorite word was Stifle. It didn’t always work. But he was not a womanizer and he was not a sexist chauvinist pig. He was Archie and he had a lot of warts.

What about Ibrahim Hooper? Without a window into Ibrahim’s private life one is forced to rely on scripture. Here goes:

Tabari IX:113 “Allah permits you to shut them in separate rooms and to beat them…Treat women well for they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves…Allah has made the enjoyment of their bodies lawful in his Qur’an.”

Tabari I:280 “Because Allah afflicted Eve, all of the women of this world menstruate and are stupid.”

Ishaq: 185 “In hell I saw women hanging by their breasts. They had fathered bastards.”

Muslim men have murdered their wives, their sisters and their daughters for as little as looking at a non-Muslim man or for refusing to wear a hijab. These crimes against humanity are called ‘Honor Killings.’ Hooper insists these killings have nothing to do with Islam. Honor killings are committed in Italy, in Greece, and other non-Muslim countries. “Leave Islam out of it,” he said. Pity the poor domestic animals!

“No one knows just how many Muslim girls and women are murdered each year in the name of family honor,” Jeff Jacoby wrote in the Jewish World Review, “since their deaths frequently go unreported and unpunished. The cases that do come to light are ghastly. ‘Women and young girls are set ablaze, strangled, shot at, clubbed, stabbed, tortured, axed, or stoned to death,’ a United Nations report noted in 2004. ‘There bodies are found mutilated with their throat slit, or they are chopped into pieces and thrown in a ditch.’” Chopped into pieces! Honor killings have occurred in Canada and the United States, more and more frequently in England and in Europe and—as Jacoby and the United Nations has noted—are common throughout the Muslim world.

Chopped into pieces! Suppose when Archie’s Gloria was 15-years-old some pimply-faced youth had made her pregnant? What would Archie have done? Would he have chopped her into pieces? Would he have beaten her? Would he have sent her to a groinocologist? The latter perhaps—and then he would have hunted down that pimply-faced weasel and beat the crap out of him. And that’s the way it should be done. Hunt down the one with the carnival instinctuals. Only a religion turned upside down would punish the victim with lethal force.

Well, the bags are packed, the van is loaded, the kids have been corralled and it’s time to move. Will it be next door to Ibrahim Hooper to next door to Archie Bunker?

We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again—we already have enough Ibrahim Hoopers.