Late last month, a senior GOP operative told Reuters that, when faced with foreign policy questions, Mitt Romney’s “instinct is to call the Cheney-ites” — those whose views align with former Vice President Dick Cheney. Just a day later, the New York Times reported that a former Cheney adviser guided Romney’s “hard line” on China policy.

Cheney’s and Romney’s views on foreign policy line up on a host of issues — something put on stark display last week when the former vice president hosted a fundraiser for Romney at his Wyoming home. The disastrous policies of the Bush era apparently remain unpopular enough that the Romney campaign barred photographs of the candidate with his host, but not enough to keep Romney from taking advice from the controversial figure. In an interview with National Review, Romney was asked about their meeting:

NATIONAL REVIEW: A few days ago, you visited Vice President Cheney. Did he have any advice for you?

ROMNEY: We did speak, at some length, about foreign-policy matters, in particular the circumstances surrounding some of the foreign-policy decisions of the Bush administration.

It’s worth remembering that Cheney was known to be a central figure in aggressive Bush administration policies that led, among other outcomes, to a costly and unnecessary war in Iraq (something several Romney advisers supported). Cheney — like some Romney advisers and other fundraisers — supported attacking Iran (in contravention to Romney’s espoused Iran policy). Cheney also considers himself a “big supporter of waterboarding,” and thinks the U.S. should revive the practice that most consider torture.

Romney previously called Cheney “a man of wisdom and judgement.” Now he’s actuating that assessment by taking advice from the former vice president.

The National Review has repeatedly found itself in hot water over the past several months. In April, the conservative publication fired John Derbyshire for a “webzine” which crossed the line into outright racism. But the magazine’s editors continue to welcome contributions from white nationalist, and noted Islamophobe, David Yerushalmi, as well as anti-Muslim advocates Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, and Daniel Pipes. And in a column published on July 4th by Conrad Black, the magazine took a bizarre turn into defending the mission of European colonialists in Africa and Asia.

Black, a publisher, columnist, and Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords declared that, “most of the world worked better in colonial times,” and went on to list the colonial accomplishments of the British, the Belgians and the Dutch. He surmises:

No one could seriously dispute that almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, all of North Africa except Morocco, all of the Middle East except Israel and Jordan and most of the oil-rich states, and the entire former British Indian Empire were better governed by Europeans.

Black’s casual defense of colonialism fails to even hint at the humanitarian costs of colonial projects in Asia and Africa or the long-term destabilizing heritage left by Europeans in their former colonies.

During the British Raj, Indians suffered some of the worst famines ever recorded. In the Great Famine of 1876-78, approximately 10.3 million people died. During the Indian famine of 1899-1900, between 1.25 and 10 million died. Professors Mike Davis and Amartya Sen explain those catastrophies as stemming from British colonial policies.

Black mildly chastises the Belgians for being “inexcusably heavy-handed in the Congo,” but defends them for “never generat[ing] the horrific casualties that have routinely occurred in the civil strife in that country in 50 years of independence, much less the approximately 1 million dead in a single month in the Rwandan massacres of the Tutsi in 1994.” That claim overlooks the Belgian government’s own admission that half the population died during the Congo Free State period of 1885 to 1908, implying a death toll of approximately 10 million.

And while Black admits “the Dutch were no joy in Indonesia, but the natives did not run amok,” he is either unaware, or willfully chooses to ignore, the deaths of Indonesians during the Indonesian National Revolution between 1945 and 1949. During this period, an estimated 45,000 to 100,000 Indonesians died fighting the Dutch and civilian casualties ranged between 25,000 and 100,000.

The National Review took a principled stand in denying outright racists, such as John Derbyshire, access to their magazine. They should show a similar sensitivity toward columnists who celebrate European colonialism while overlooking, and in some cases denying, millions of deaths in Africa and Asia.

Back in April, National Review finally parted ways with longtime contributor John Derbyshire after Derbyshire penned an especially racist piece advising non-black American parents on how to talk to their kids about black people. Explaining his decision to sever ties, editor Rich Lowry called Derbyshire’s piece “nasty and indefensible,” and wrote that Derbyshire:

“is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation.”

While National Review’s decision to can Derbyshire was commendable (if long overdue), ThinkProgress noted at the time that it continued to feature the writings of prominent Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, and Daniel Pipes, and called on the magazine to sever ties with these figures as well.

Unfortunately, not only has National Review continued to publish these Islamophobic authors, it has now taken on as a contributor one of the Islamophobia network’s worst offenders, David Yerushalmi.

Back in September 2010, ThinkProgress examined Yerushalmi’s long history of extremists statements, which include a proposal making it “a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.” In a 2006 article, Yerushalmi lamented in the inability to engage in “a discussion of Islam as an evil religion, or of blacks as the most murderous of peoples (at least in New York City), or of illegal immigrants as deserving of no rights” without being labeled a racist. He also wrote that the American founders were on to something when they limited the vote to white men. “There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote.”

As Mother Jones noted, the Anti-Defimation League said Yerushalmi has “record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry.”

In short, he has espoused white nationalist views very similar to John Derbyshire’s, with the added bonus of anti-Muslim “creeping sharia” nonsense. Were the editors of National Review simply unaware if these statements? Or don’t they consider this stuff “nasty and indefensible”?

A class taught by the military to officers at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, came under fire when a report on Wired’s Danger Room blog last week exposed it for teaching soldiers to engage in a “total war” on Islam and taking a war on Islam “to the civilian population wherever necessary.” The full set of course materials, hundreds of documents and slide shows obtained by ThinkProgress, reveal just how deep Islamophobia ran through the military instruction. The material contained dozens of citations to the work of some of America’s best known anti-Muslim bigots.

Not all of the material in the course, however, was anti-Muslim. Materials from reputable sources such as the Brookings Institution and RAND corporation also appeared among the readings, and only some of the presenters to the class used blatantly Islamophobic material. (The public affairs officer of the Joint Forces Staff College didn’t respond to repeated inquiries by press time.)

But the “Islamophobia network,” discussed in the Center for American Progress’ “Fear, Inc.” report, played a prominent role in many of the 266 documents acquired by ThinkProgress. Islamophobic “misinformation experts” — as they’re defined in “Fear, Inc.” — cited in Army teaching materials included:

Robert Spencer – 34 mentions across 8 documents (his blog, JihadWatch.org, was cited 11 times across 7 documents)

Spencer is the co-founder of Stop Islamization of America and the director of JihadWatch.org. He has argued that “traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. Spencer is prominent pseudo-intellectual in the “counter jihad” blogging community who argues that Islam is inherently violent. He says “It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”

Steven Emerson – 16 mentions across 4 documents

Emerson is the founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and a former journalist at U.S. News & World Report and CNN. His greatest notoriety came from prematurely declaring that Oklahoma City bombing was committed by Muslims. The actual culprit was right-wing anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh. Emerson tells his followers that “Nearly all of the Islamic organizations in the United States that define themselves as religiously or culturally Muslim in character have, today, been totally captured or dominated by radical fundamentalist elements.”

Center for Security Policy (CSP) – 60 mentions across 3 documents

CSP is led by notorious Islamophobe Frank Gaffney and produced the report, “Shariah: The Threat to America” which has served as the blueprint for “anti-Shariah” legislation across the country.

David Yerushalmi – 9 mentions across 3 documents

Yerushalmi is general counsel for CSP, a co-author of “Shariah: The Threat to America” and the founder of Society of Americans for National Existence. The Anti-Defamation League concluded that he has a “record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry.”

Daniel Pipes – 50 mentions across 10 documents (his organization, Middle East Forum, was cited 39 times across 10 documents)

Pipes, the director of Middle East Forum, is increasingly strident about the supposed threat posed by Islam and Muslims in America. He argues, “All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

Finally, right-wing news publications were frequently cited in the training materials acquired by ThinkProgress. The Washington Times was cited 76 times across 16 documents; The National Review 130 times across 6 documents and Fox News 130 times across six documents.

Instructors’ reliance on far-right thinktanks and experts adds to the increasingly disturbing portrait of counter-terrorism instruction at the Joint Forces Staff College, potraying the West as at war with Islam and Muslims. The sheer frequency of citations in the course materials raises questions that hopefully will be answered by an investigation launched at the behest of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who admirably said the questionable course material was “totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound.”

In National Review, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson — two key figures in the Islamophobia network discussed in CAP’s 2011 Fear, Inc report — write that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) “has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, that can and should get in the way of his possible ascent to higher office”:

In short, Christie has hugged a terrorist-organization member, abridged free-speech rights, scorned concern over Islamization, and opposed law-enforcement counterterrorism efforts. Whenever an issue touching on Islam arises, Christie takes the Islamist side against those — the DHS, state senators, the NYPD, even the ACLU — who worry about lawful Islamism eroding the fabric of American life.

A perusal of the authors’ case against Christie reveals it as comically weak, full of highly questionable characterizations and buttressed by links that don’t actually demonstrate what they’re supposed to. In a typical example, they criticize Christie for voicing support for Mohammed Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, “on the eve of his deportation hearing for not hiding an Israeli conviction for membership in Hamas.” They do not mention that the hearing resulted in Qatanani being cleared of charges.

Pipes and Emerson knock Christie for his concern over revelations of the New York City Police Department’s spying on New Jersey Muslims, suggesting that he should’ve shown “gratitude” for the NYPD operating outside its jurisdiction.

And of course the authors take special offense at Christie’s bold defense of New Jersey state superior court judge Sohail Mohammed against attacks by anti-Islam activists, in which Christie offered the most cogent summation of the anti-sharia movement on record: “It’s crap. It’s just crazy.”

Pipes and Emerson suggest that there is tension between Christie’s friendly relations with Muslims and his “ostentatiously” pro-Israel stance. “This makes him unusual,” the authors write, “for a pro-Israel stance typically goes hand-in-hand with concern about Shari’a.” But in asserting such a zero-sum relationship between support for Muslim constituents and support for Israel, Pipes and Emerson inadvertently demonstrate two things: First, their own ignorance about Israel. Since its founding, Israel has maintained a publicly-funded Sharia court system for the some 19 percent of Israelis who are Muslim. (Israeli society is fraught with numerous challenges, but imminent takeover by sharia law does not appear to be one of them.) And second, that their real agenda involves creating difficulty for Christie among pro-Israel voters. As with all such smear efforts, the goal here isn’t to actually demonstrate that Christie has done anything wrong, merely to create the sense that there are “troubling questions” about Christie’s views and relationships.

While Pipes and Emerson fail to demonstrate that Chris Christie has an “Islam problem,” they succeed in demonstrating that National Review still has an Islamophobia problem. Last month the magazine took important steps to rid itself of two writers who had expressed bigoted views toward African-Americans. It’s long past time that National Review do the same with those of its writers expressing similar views toward Muslim Americans.