What’s a dhimmicrat, you say? It’s not the same thing as a democrat. A dhimmicrat is a person who, while not Muslim himself, nonetheless clears the path for shariah law to be adopted and incorporated into otherwise free nations.

One prime example of this would be the Right Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Normally, you would think this top Anglican cleric, who lives in a palace in London, would appreciate Britain’s history as the world’s leader in the Rule of Law. As a minister of the Gospel, Mr. Williams might see his country as a Christian country. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, an immigrant from Pakistan, has tried heroically to awaken Britons to their peril. Bishop Nazir-Ali says English law and the Christian religion are the two things that make Britain Great. And every day, dhimmicrats like Rowan Williams are trading away their birthright for a mess of pottage. Rowan Williams said Britain must accommodate herself to shariah law in large swaths of her urban neighborhoods.

Another example of dhimmicrats would be the Pentagon bureaucrats who recently banned Rev. Franklin Graham from addressing Christians who work there because Rev. Graham had been critical of Muslim terrorists. Does anyone else think it’s weird that the Pentagon–which is supposed to be leading the worldwide war on terror–jihadist terror–finds a Christian evangelist too hot to handle?

Jimmy Carter may be the leading dhimmicrat in the world. Carter, of course, won his Nobel Peace Prize not just for his work in reconciling Israelis and Egyptians in the famous Camp David Accords of 1978. If the Nobelers wanted simply to honor that achievement, they might have bestowed their once-prestigious prize on Carter in `79 or `80. Such a prize would probably have made a nice consolation present for Carter when Ronald Reagan beat him like a drum in the 1980 elections.

Instead, the Nobel Committee waited for two decades, during which time Carter has outdone himself in denunciations of Israel. Carter likened Israel’s security fence to South African apartheid. He has spent his post-presidency maligning the Jewish state while kowtowing to Arab “leaders.” These so-called leaders never have to face the voters. Maybe that’s why Dhimmi Carter likes them.

What is dhimmitude, anyway? It’s the status–or lack of status–that is accorded to non-believers in Muslim-dominant countries. Dhimmis get to pay special taxes for not being Muslim. They get to be excluded from many educational and professional opportunities. They get to have their churches burned and their communities attacked. If you want to know more about what life is like under dhimmitude, just ask the Copts of Egypt. But ask these hardy Christians here. Don’t ask them there.

Eric Holder is a leading dhimmicrat in government today. Our Attorney General has yet to rule out a civilian trial in Manhattan for Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad boasted of how he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl. A more loathsome human being it would be hard to imagine. But Eric Holder is giving Khalid Sheikh Muhammad all the rights accorded to American citizens accused of mass murder. Why? Why, too, should Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, be given a Miranda warning and allowed to escape trial before a military tribunal? Our A.G. has no coherent answer to these questions.

The answer is that dhimmicrats fear to offend. Fear drives them to make concession after concession. They are forever apologizing. The Crusades? Don’t even mention the word. That can set them off. Jihadists today complain about Crusaders’ cruelty in the 12th century. (That’s odd. I don’t remember riots when Saddam Hussein murdered 400,000 Muslims in his forty-year reign of terror.) In Britain, timorous town councilors even banned Winnie the Poohk because the character of Piglet might offend some residents. These councilors are dhimmicrats all. The dhimmicrats are on the march.