I know the media has pronounced last night's GOP debate "gaffeless," but, while reading up on the event for an appearance on WNYC this a.m.,  I  discovered a massive hole in most of these GOP heads. The issue is the proposed sale of 20 percent of NASDAQ to Dubai Borse, the stock exchange owned by the government of Dubai.
     The question was straightforward: Should a Dubai company be able to own 20 percent of NASDAQ?
    Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, bless them, said no, with Hunter citing national security risks, but I haven't read any further elaboration.
     For the rest of the GOP gang, including the anointed frontrunners, it all  
boiled down to free trade,  doing business with the world, blah, blah. Nothing more.
    But there is something more, something anyone contemplating national leadership should seriously consider: namely, "the arrival of the world's first Islamic stock exchange in the heart of the U.S. and Western economies," write Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa  A. Lappen in The Washington Times.
    What is an Islamic stock exchange? What is Islamic finance? It would nice if  the candidates--Fred Thompson, for example, so quick to define "Goober" and "Gomer" as Andy Griffith Show characters--could offer an explanation.
     Islamic, or sharia-based finance, Ehrenfeld and Lappen write, is the 1920s invention of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, who wanted to create an independent Islamic financial system to top the Western economy and help spread Islam worldwide. Today, more than 400 Islamic financial institutions currently operate in 75 countries. "All investments with Islamic financial institutions are subject to the minimum zakat (Islamic charitable wealth tax). ... If past zakat distribution is any indication, all Muslim jihadist-terror organizations (including Palestinian Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, and the many al Qaeda offspring) will benefit.
    Gosh. All Lenin wanted to do was sell us the rope.