GOP's anti-Muslim moment harms America
Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 12:03 AM
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Politically, the GOP's stance against American Muslims' right to build a new Islamic center in lower Manhattan marks a defining moment in the nativist resurgence gripping America.
Today, unfortunately, our most experienced conservative leaders are falling over themselves to reinforce Al Qaeda's toxic message that we're at war with Muslims, that America does not honor Islam.
By standing up for old fashioned American decency President Obama, they say, made a terrific, far reaching political mistake that will cost him dearly in November.
Really? This is Barack Obama we're talking about, one of the most cool headed political players America has produced in fifty years. I can't stress how much that's worth remembering.
It's been fascinating to watch how Obama's presidency continually strips his conservative opponents of their best political instincts, because they've walked into every trap they set for him. Again and again.
The reason is clear: Obama inspires in his foes an implacable opposition of a kind that we simply have not seen before. It's something new. Bolstered by overconfidence, his opponents consistently overplay their hands.
Being certain that you're correct is quite fatal in politics. It leaves no room for maneuver. It shuts down. But still they keep coming with their ultimatum dumbshows. Take Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, for example. This week he claimed the new Islamic center project 'would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.'
To suggest, as Gingrich does, that someone trying to build a tolerance center for moderate Muslims in New York is the equivalent of killing six million Jews is insufferable nonsense, obviously.
But that's not what fascinates me. The truly interesting thing is that a political figure of Gingrich's experience is now uttering such credulous nonsense without a sharp and immediate reprimand from his own party.
If you want to find the the GOP leadership these days just look for all the red faces. Behind the scenes, it must be hoped, the calmer heads are working hard to cool the rhetoric. Because at risk, no less, is the Muslim point of view both at home and abroad.
After two of the longest wars in American history, it's unspeakable that so many conservative politicians could be this blinkered, this narrowly partisan and this tone deaf to foreign policy in the Middle East.
The Tea Party rhetoric - and its remarkable enthusiasm for cathartic purges of all kinds - has blinded the party to the real danger its been put in. In pursuit of the populist vote they've put the public in the drivers seat.
Let's review: after allowing the Tea Party to set their agenda, African Americans, the gays, the undocumented and the Muslims have been crossed off the GOP's mailing list for 2010 and 2012.
My how that big tent's contracted. Taken together, that's a pretty large cross section of the United States standing out there in the cold. So who'll be left to vote for the GOP in 2012?
It's turns out that, after all, there is a great deal to be said for experience and nuanced governance. Popular wisdom says that Republican's will sweep to victory in November, but popular wisdom also appears to have stripped them of their longstanding political smarts.
57 comments
hollabackgurl | Aug 19, 2010, 03:42 PM EDT
IrishandProud you're an ideologue and crank and you're not worth debating; McNabb1966 I honestly respect how you feel on the issue (for the record, I'm not a fan of Islam or any overtly patriarchal religion) but how can you make the claim that you know what the motivation behind the site really is? Telling me I don't implies you do. Where did you come by that information?
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McNabb1966 | Aug 19, 2010, 02:48 PM EDT
@hollabackgurl... First of all, I never said that Al Qaeda speaks for all Muslims. But I'm not going to ignore Al Qaeda's motives for committing mass murder, either. Secondly, Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan don't speak for all Muslims, either. So, again...let's not distort the issue here. The slaughter of Muslims by other Muslims is not a sufficient argument for why Cordoba House must be built at Ground Zero. The fact of the matter is that you don't know what the motivation really is but you can't explain why they have to build at that location. And while you're at it, explain to us exactly how Cordoba House facilitates "tolerance?" There are already two mosques in lower Manhattan and nobody is demanding that they be shut down.
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IrishAndProud | Aug 19, 2010, 02:35 PM EDT
It's not a 'Muslim Tolerance Center,' hollabackgurl. It is an ISLAMIC VICTORY MOSQUE (or 'HaMosque,' as it's now being called, seeing as it has the backing of Hamas, the anti-Israel, antisemitic terrorist group), deliberately being put up near Ground Zero as a middle-finger-in-the-eye to the USA. If groups like HAMAS are openly backing this thing -- and its Imam fundraiser flatly ruling out not taking funds from Iran (whose leadership has openly threatened another Holocaust by wiping Israel off the map)...how can you call this anything other than what it is?
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hollabackgurl | Aug 19, 2010, 02:28 PM EDT
The 9/11 attack was carried out by Al Qaeda, under the direct order of its leader Osama Bin Laden. Between his organization and the Taliban, more ordinary Muslims have been killed than by any other group. These people speak for all Muslims the way the man who shot abortion provider Geroge Tiller speaks for all Christians.
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McNabb1966 | Aug 19, 2010, 02:27 PM EDT
More deep thinking from the Left: Per Russell Simmons on Larry King Live...."If you're blaming Muslims for the attack on 9/11, then you need to change your mind. We didn't- did we blame Christians at the first World Trade attack? We didn't." Hip hop hooray!
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FastEddy | Aug 19, 2010, 01:57 PM EDT
The GOP are not the only ones ... How about the National Organization for Women (NOW). Anyone? ... anyone? ... is anyone there anymore?
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McNabb1966 | Aug 19, 2010, 12:30 PM EDT
@hollabackgurl...That's very easy. This is a very unique situation involving the murder of nearly over 2,700 people at Ground Zero. The terrorist attack was, like it or not, carried out by Muslim extremists. That's a fact and it means that in this case it's fair to question the motives behind building an elaborate Muslim cultural center as close as possible to the site of those deaths. This is not about opposing Islam or preventing Muslims from practicing their religion. Opponents of Cordoba House feel that it is inappropriate to build it near the site of so much death and destruction. We don't believe that Cordoba House is intended to promote "tolerance."
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chesapeake | Aug 19, 2010, 11:54 AM EDT
The writer is full of something besides common sense and knowledge of the American people.
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hollabackgurl | Aug 19, 2010, 11:17 AM EDT
McNabb1966 needs to explain how insisting that a Muslim tolerance center not be built is not an anti-Muslim sentiment?
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jamieLM | Aug 19, 2010, 09:47 AM EDT
Right on McNabb. If Americans mistrust Muslims and their motives, they have good cause. Who's busy building bombs to leave in parked cars? Who's going overseas for "training" and then coming back here. How about that incident at Ft. Hood? I haven't heard any loud condemnation from the peaceful Muslim community whenever there are attacks, or potential attacks, on Americans either here or abroad. Many of these radical Muslims live and flourish among the general Muslim communities in every state. If we're wary, cautious, or if we question motives, then left-wingers call us "racists" and "bigots" and blame the big-bad GOP.
We were clueless at Pearl Harbor and then on 9-ll.
Now the Muslims insist on rubbing salt in our wounds. The message is - WE DON'T CARE if you feel that this center/mosque is insensitive and disrespectful to the victims and their families. Sensitivity is not a 2-way street.
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McNabb1966 | Aug 19, 2010, 07:08 AM EDT
The same wingnuts who are in agreement with O'Doherty on this issue are basically the same wingnuts who were calling Jewish people "Nazis" and knife-wielding Turkish thugs "peace activists" a couple of months ago. So, there is not a lot of deep thinking going on in the heads of apologists like olovely. The fact of the matter is that this issue is not "anti-Muslim" or "anti-Islam" or an "attack" on religious freedom or the Constitution. This is just another excuse for the Left to do the only thing they know how to do really well: accuse their opponents of "racism" or "bigotry." It's their default response to issues they can't handle intellectually. They're all drunk on the koolaid and not thinking clearly. Or maybe Cahir just likes the attention... lol Drink up, wingnuts!
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IrishAndProud | Aug 19, 2010, 01:37 AM EDT
olovely, Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is a Muslim organization, and Bin Laden himself is a Muslim...were you not aware of that?
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olovely | Aug 18, 2010, 10:53 PM EDT
It's pathetic that so many posters here think all American Muslims are intending jihadists. Islam did not attack us, neither did the Muslim world - Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda did. The fact that you don't know that after ten years of war means that they succeeded far more than they could have dreamed of.
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rcrdskpr@aol.com | Aug 18, 2010, 10:02 PM EDT
o'doherty suffers from cranial rectal inversion, as do so many liberal elitists. how about a statue in downtown dublin to william of orange? think it will fly?
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We're told, for example, that the attackers were religious extremists who were prepared to die for their beliefs. Is there any support for that, other than the fact that the 19 hijackers were all Arabs? It's likely that 19 Arabs would all be Muslims, but the question is whether they were all extremists willing to commit suicide. The evidence thins out remarkably at this point. In fact, there are reports that these guys went to meet Allah with booze on their breath. There is no way that this happened.
I'm also suspicious of the timing of this story - it looks like a political manipulation at a time when the same people who got us into Iraq are looking to get us into a war with Iran. We're also learning that our combat troops have finally left Iraq. Is the Mosque story an intentional distraction from the failure of the Iraq war? That possibility cannot be discounted.
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