Does The 2012 GOP Convention Logo Include A Minaret?

I can say with a fair degree of certainty it is UTampa's Moorish Domes.

Cupolas for the most part aren't shaped like the domes of UTampa either.

Minarets?

Why oh why do the Republicans hate America? :(

And there goes Steele again with that terrorist hand sign!

There's the big red palm tree...where's Clifford?

@lhharris: You must be part of the conspiracy. You failed to mention that UT's newspaper is called "The Minaret".

And the last great Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, stayed there on his way to the Great Imperialist Adventure in Cuba with his Rough Riders.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! The Tampa Logo Mosque has GOT TO GO!

More symbolism: The Tampa Bay Host Committee appears to be under water.

Considering the Gasparilla Festival I think they need a Pirate ship as well and it would fit the economic character of the party.

Read this thread and realize that, in today's American culture, this is why we are losing.

If this were a Republican comment board commenting on a Democratic logo, everybody in here would be saying "OF *COURSE* IT IS A MINARET! THEY HATE AMERICA!!!" We'd all be engaged in a mass stroke session where we buttress our existing positions. And we'd take that energy and go on to MSNBC.com and NYTIMES.com and spew our confidence onto the message boards. And the media would see all that confidence and accept it as a sign that the country is "center-right" and change their reporting and framing accordingly.

I'm not saying we SHOULD be that way. But the discrepancy is startling. Every time we liberals make a joke, we have to qualify and hedge it, so everyone knows we're actually quite reasonable and capable of seeing both sides. Apparently, that kind of ability is in low demand right now, compared to the ability to go for the "truthiness".

This is a ridiculous story and should not be on TPM.

Naw, that's a Russian church dome, a la St. Basil's in Red Square. . . the GOP has gone commie.

Gone Commie / Muslim? Wow the republicans have "embraced" diversity. How about a same sex couple to complete their "conversion"? Have a hunch "heads will roll" in the party. Unfortunately if you want to excise the brains of a republican you have to reduce their glutimus maximus.

That is definitely not a minaret. It's a dome, a kitschy version of what a Moorish dome is supposed to look like.

But to me it looks more like one of the domes on the cathedral in the Kremlin. So maybe it symbolizes Ronald Reagan's defeat of the Soviet Union and the reversion of Russia to Orthodox Christianity. LOL

Yes. That is a minaret. Part of the Tampa skyline, The University of Tampa is across the river from downtown Tampa. Plant Hall is the original building of the university founded in 1933. The building was built as the Tampa Bay Hotel by railroad Henry B. Plant before the turn of the 20th Century. The hotel hosted many dignitaries, including Teddy Roosevelt with the Rough Riders before embarking for Cuba in the Spanish American War.
So, yes, the minarets are a well-known symbol of Tampa.
By the way, there are 13 minarets on Plant Hall. One minaret for each month of the Muslims calendar.
Obviously, not only are the Muslim invaders cunning enough to send pregnant women to the USA to "drop anchor babies," The started planning their Jihad before the turn of the 20th Century by influencing an American capitalist to build an Arabian Nights-style building in the middle if the Infidels. Clever.

Definitely prayer towers and red crescents with secret encrypted messages to sleeper cells ready to make the "war on terror our #1 priority again, so they can distract everybody while they raise gas prices out the roof again, then burn down Wall Street again after they've deposited all of THEIR money in Swiss Bank accounts,....again...whew.
Definitely is the handiwork of the Hypocrite Brigade of the "so-called conservative" wing of the SLP (Sore Loser Party) aka the GOP (Greedy Obstacle to Progress) Party.

Unless this item is tongue-in-cheek, it's not worth talking about.

Boy, you guys are sure getting desperate, aren't you? What's next holding a celebration of Ted Steven's death? If you wonder why you've lost former liberal democrats like me, and I will be voting republican for the first time (haven't become one, I'm an independent now, but I want all vestiges of the left dragged kicking and screaming from any and all political offices, and will devote as much time and money possible to achieve that end) just look at yourselves, your ignorance and indifference. You've exposed yourselves as being what I always thought was a lie. You're disgusting.

You want to talk about hatred and intolerance? Examine your rapacious knuckling under to the misogynistic, homophobic radical Islamists, I mean seriously, the left is insane, you have groups who call themselves "Queers for Palestine", who can't be bothered to consider that they would be stoned, shot or hung for being gay in Palestine. Truly moderate Muslims, in the US and Canada have spoken out stating that, for example the proposed mosque near ground zero is a deliberate act of provocation, an attempt to gain the upper hand so as to more effectively impose sharia. You have absolutely no idea what sharia would actually do, and the fact that it would be imposed upon all of you ultimately. It's happening in the UK, and it's started happening here. In Newark, a recent immigrant from Morocco who divorced her husband for abusiveness, was raped after the divorce by him. The judge, a regular US judge in a US family court, refused to grant her a restraining order as she was terrified. The judge used the excuse that as her husband was Muslim, and he didn't believe he'd done anything wrong as he refused to acknowledge the divorce, and felt he was still entitled to sex on demand from her, the rape hadn't been intentionally a criminal act. She and her attorney had to pursue an appeal, merely to gain her protection. This is what your imposition of PC has wrought on society, a devaluation of rights and freedoms, it's regressive, not progressive in any way. No decent person could respect themselves if they continued to be willingly blind to your collective insanity. You're motivated by hatred and a lust for power, and have corrupted yourselves. You all ought to be ashamed.

Left Coaster,

Oh and let's talk about disrespect for the dead, I'm guessing you were in a cave when Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy died, or you missed the nasty shit wingnuts had to say about both. We're not just talking about the rank and file, but those with actual positions like Steve Forbes who intoned barely a day after senator Byrd was dead that the "market was happy" and considering what a douche he is, himself by extension. Or the continued and nasty shit wingnuts had to say about Senator Kennedy including signs distributed that said "bury Obamacare with Ted Kennedy" and the continuous recycling of Chappaquiddick ON HIS DEATH DAY. So again, fuck you and your stupidy.

Oh yes, let’s do talk about disrespect for the dead. Not trolling the waters you habituate doesn’t equate to living in a cave. I do remember the crocodile tears after Ted Kennedy died on the left, the man who pushed through No Child Left Behind, indifferent to the harm in caused, as it profited him. The man who was behind the 9 amnesties in the US, that have between them, increasingly displaced working poor and middle class US citizens, black, brown and white. Eroded wages, increased homelessness and destitution, brought about levels of malnutrition and anemia among US citizens that are higher than during the Great Depression. Ted Kennedy has brokered deals that harmed the most vulnerable US citizens, to line his own pockets. Let’s get something straight here, Ted wasn’t JFK or RFK, neither is is son, the druggie alchie Patrick. Poor US citizens, black, brown and white in Massachusetts have suffered because of Ted Kennedy, especially in the poorest districts and neighborhoods. Ted’s advocacy has discriminated against them in their quest for employment. Ted preferred, as you do, as the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, as the neo-cons do, cheap foreign labor. When those citizens, again, black, brown and white spoke out about being denied jobs, in preference for illegal aliens, whether at the Michael Bianco factory or other such examples, fat, wealthy Teddy, in his ivory tower called them racist and xenophobic, but far, far away, from a mike in the capital aired on lily white MSNBC or on CNN. Not daring to go directly to Fall River or New Bedford, where black Americans, brown Americans, white Americans, and even some indigenous Americans, who were lifelong, experienced leather stitchers were not hired, so the factory could hire illegal aliens with no leather stitching experience, yet lie, claiming they hired the illegals because they couldn’t find US citizens who had experience stitching leather. Ted, and John Kerry as well knew that was a lie, both were very familiar with the displacement that started after Clinton pushed through NAFTA, starting the push of the shoe, belt, luggage and other factories to Mexico. But Ted, and Kerry too, refused to address that fact, they just hooted “racist!” “xenophobic!” across the ether. I know that this paragraph is long, but I could go on and on, on the subject.. Just don’t feel I should have to. All the boo-hoo-hooing over Ted’s death was farcical, and frankly, as a woman whose husband died, because democrats reducing our social welfare and health care programs to little more than corporate welfare scams, and whose democrat senators and representative couldn’t care less when I reached out for help for the very first time.. I admit to having no emotion what so ever when fatcat Ted finally kicked the bucket. I didn’t cheer his passing, but I do admit that when I learned of his diagnosis, I did hope that he suffered, suffered far more than my poor husband did, and my husband was treated worse than a dog would be. He was denied the specialist he needed as a transplant patient, and a cancer went undiagnosed. The cancer was diagnosed after he’d retained more than 10 liters of fluid in his abdomen, because he’d entered end stage organ failure and his internal organs no longer processed the assorted chemicals and toxins they normally deal with. He was overdosed with a tranquilizer by a Filipino nurse brought to the US through a J1 visa, whose English reading skills were sorely lacking, which sent him into respiratory failure, and he died a week later, his lungs filled with fluid. We lost one of his last 1 weeks due to that overdose, he was in a coma like state after that. In all candor, I’m honest enough to wish the many leftists out there suffer even half as much, and given what is happening at present, it’s a fair bet that lots of you will, and you’ve only yourselves to blame. Hey, I’m only human, and you know that it’s very human to want to see the villains get a taste of their own medicine in the end.

I don’t watch Steve Forbes, you ought to ask the left’s St. Bono, who idolizes Steve Forbes, and seeks to get richer pushing poor African nations to sell their poor out as guinea pigs for vaccine trials for big pharma companies Bono, along with Bill & Melinda Gates have big investments in.

I did hear comments from people speaking out about the hypocrisy of democrats, and the CBC eulogizing Robert Byrd as a great man, given his past as a Klan bigwig, and his occasional dropping of the “n” word, even long past the time he’d claimed to have left that behind. That occurred after democrats and the CBC attacking the tea party people, including black tea party members as racist, and “uncle Toms” and “race traitors”, not based on actual racism, but because they found their speaking out as the constitution affords them the right to do, inconvenient. They’ve exploited and cheapened what real victims of racism have gone through, in fact, I’ve heard a black tea party member say, that this same group of democrats and the CBC would have called Dr. King a “racist” and “race traitor”. Even Jon Stewart has pointed out that the race card has been maxed out, and he’s right about that.

I did feel badly after Robert Byrd died. While I've never been able to speak to any of my senators or representative, I've actually spoken to Robert Byrd. Back in the '80s, I'd seen him on the news, exposing a US arms manufacturer, violating the ban on arms sales to Iran, and Byrd went above and beyond to expose this company. I was impressed, and quite frankly angry at the way the media treated him like a crank. So I telephoned his DC office to express my support for his actions and to thank him. The staffer, despite knowing I wasn't a constituent asked for my contact info, so I provided it. Four hours later, I received a telephone call from Senator Byrd to thank me. He spoke to me about the wider aspects of his reasons for exposing the company, how Iran would use that weaponry to attack their own people, and those in other neighboring countries. He offered to, and did sent an autographed pocket constitution to my daughter, who was then a toddler, which she still has. She cried as well upon learning of his death, and we prayed for him during his many illnesses. Robert Byrd wasn't a perfect man, no one is, and I believe he did many good things as a senator, one of the greatest things was that he truly upheld the constitution, emphasized it's importance. It's for that reason that it was hypocritical for those that sought to exploit the term racism, to unjustly silence and censor the tea party and black tea party members and conservatives, because the democrats and CBC were acting no differently than the white racists of the '50s and '60s who did the same thing to the civil rights movement.

The left are cowards, they can’t engage in honest debate, they rely on hateful, venomous, false, smear tactics, because of their cowardice. They simply can’t come right out and admit what they’re doing, because they don’t want to lose those remaining on the plantation.

TPM: officially rendered irrelevant by its peddling of ridiculous, trumped-up "scandals" and conspiracy theories.