An amusing column on the NYC mosque by Maureen Dowd....
damookster Send a noteboard - 20/08/2010 12:33:27 AM
Our Mosque Madness
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Maybe, for Barack Obama, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.
When the president skittered back from his grandiose declaration at an iftar celebration at the White House Friday that Muslims enjoy freedom of religion in America and have the right to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan, he offered a Clintonesque parsing.
“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said the morning after he commented on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Perfectly Unclear President: You cannot take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when, lo and behold, Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack. What is so frightening about Fox News?
Some critics have said the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers would be to allow a mosque to be built near ground zero.
Actually, the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers is the moral timidity that would ban a mosque from that neighborhood.
Our enemies struck at our heart, but did they also warp our identity?
The war against the terrorists is not a war against Islam. In fact, you can’t have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam.
George W. Bush understood this. And it is odd to see Barack Obama less clear about this matter than his predecessor. It’s time for W. to weigh in.
This — along with immigration reform and AIDS in Africa — was one of his points of light. As the man who twice went to war in the Muslim world, he has something of an obligation to add his anti-Islamophobia to this mosque madness. W. needs to get his bullhorn back out.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are both hyper-articulate former law professors. But Clinton never presented himself as a moral guide to the country. So when he weaseled around, or triangulated on some issues, it was part of his ultra-fallible persona — and consistent with his identity as a New Democrat looking for a Third Way.
But Obama presents himself as a paragon of high principle. So when he flops around on things like “don’t ask, don’t tell” or shrinks back from one of his deepest beliefs about the freedom of religion anywhere and everywhere in America, it’s not pretty. Even worse, this is the man who staked his historical reputation on a new and friendlier engagement with the Muslim world. The man who extended his hand to Tehran has withdrawn his hand from Park Place.
Paranoid about looking weak, Obama allowed himself to be weakened by perfectly predictable Republican hysteria. Which brings us to Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich fancies himself an intellectual, a historian, a deep thinker — the opposite number, you might say, of Sarah Palin.
Yet here is Gingrich attempting to out-Palin Palin on Fox News: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.” There is no more demagogic analogy than that.
Have any of the screaming critics noticed that there already are two mosques in the same neighborhood — one four blocks away and one 12 blocks away.
Should they be dismantled? And what about the louche liquor stores and strip clubs in the periphery of the sacred ground?
By now you have to be willfully blind not to know that the imam in charge of the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the moderate Muslim we have allegedly been yearning for.
So look where we are. The progressive Democrat in the White House, the first president of the United States with Muslim roots, has been morally trumped by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, two moderate Republicans who have spoken bravely and lucidly about not demonizing and defaming an entire religion in the name of fighting its radicals.
Criticizing his fellow Republicans, Governor Christie said that while he understood the pain and sorrow of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11, “we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush.”
He charged the president with trying to turn the issue into a political football. But that is not quite right. It already was a political football and the president fumbled it.
I particularly enjoyed how this supported Tom's point in his Obama post
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Maybe, for Barack Obama, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.
When the president skittered back from his grandiose declaration at an iftar celebration at the White House Friday that Muslims enjoy freedom of religion in America and have the right to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan, he offered a Clintonesque parsing.
“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said the morning after he commented on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Perfectly Unclear President: You cannot take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when, lo and behold, Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack. What is so frightening about Fox News?
Some critics have said the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers would be to allow a mosque to be built near ground zero.
Actually, the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers is the moral timidity that would ban a mosque from that neighborhood.
Our enemies struck at our heart, but did they also warp our identity?
The war against the terrorists is not a war against Islam. In fact, you can’t have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam.
George W. Bush understood this. And it is odd to see Barack Obama less clear about this matter than his predecessor. It’s time for W. to weigh in.
This — along with immigration reform and AIDS in Africa — was one of his points of light. As the man who twice went to war in the Muslim world, he has something of an obligation to add his anti-Islamophobia to this mosque madness. W. needs to get his bullhorn back out.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are both hyper-articulate former law professors. But Clinton never presented himself as a moral guide to the country. So when he weaseled around, or triangulated on some issues, it was part of his ultra-fallible persona — and consistent with his identity as a New Democrat looking for a Third Way.
But Obama presents himself as a paragon of high principle. So when he flops around on things like “don’t ask, don’t tell” or shrinks back from one of his deepest beliefs about the freedom of religion anywhere and everywhere in America, it’s not pretty. Even worse, this is the man who staked his historical reputation on a new and friendlier engagement with the Muslim world. The man who extended his hand to Tehran has withdrawn his hand from Park Place.
Paranoid about looking weak, Obama allowed himself to be weakened by perfectly predictable Republican hysteria. Which brings us to Newt Gingrich.
Gingrich fancies himself an intellectual, a historian, a deep thinker — the opposite number, you might say, of Sarah Palin.
Yet here is Gingrich attempting to out-Palin Palin on Fox News: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.” There is no more demagogic analogy than that.
Have any of the screaming critics noticed that there already are two mosques in the same neighborhood — one four blocks away and one 12 blocks away.
Should they be dismantled? And what about the louche liquor stores and strip clubs in the periphery of the sacred ground?
By now you have to be willfully blind not to know that the imam in charge of the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the moderate Muslim we have allegedly been yearning for.
So look where we are. The progressive Democrat in the White House, the first president of the United States with Muslim roots, has been morally trumped by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, two moderate Republicans who have spoken bravely and lucidly about not demonizing and defaming an entire religion in the name of fighting its radicals.
Criticizing his fellow Republicans, Governor Christie said that while he understood the pain and sorrow of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11, “we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush.”
He charged the president with trying to turn the issue into a political football. But that is not quite right. It already was a political football and the president fumbled it.
I particularly enjoyed how this supported Tom's point in his Obama post
Mook
*MySmiley*
"Bustin' makes me feel good!"
Ghostbusters, by Ray Parker Jr.
*MySmiley*
"Bustin' makes me feel good!"
Ghostbusters, by Ray Parker Jr.
An amusing column on the NYC mosque by Maureen Dowd....
- 20/08/2010 12:33:27 AM
1506 Views
She has a point. Bush had the guts to weather the storm on DPW.
- 20/08/2010 12:42:21 AM
906 Views
DPW? I keep sitting here trying to figure out what that means.
- 20/08/2010 12:50:14 AM
770 Views
Re: DPW? I keep sitting here trying to figure out what that means.
- 20/08/2010 12:56:44 AM
1037 Views
Once again, listen to the Economist and don't use abbreviations that aren't obvious.
- 20/08/2010 06:38:08 PM
789 Views
That abbreviation was obvious and all over the place at the time the incident happened.
- 20/08/2010 07:59:08 PM
824 Views
I certainly don't remember seeing it anywhere. The abbreviation was unnecessary in any event.
- 20/08/2010 10:43:05 PM
751 Views
Sure, I could've done that, if I had realized it would puzzle people. I did not. *NM*
- 20/08/2010 10:59:42 PM
490 Views
well since Christie is actually a republican he makes a better example than Bloomberg
- 20/08/2010 01:53:44 PM
847 Views
Gingrich thinks he is a deep thinker?
- 20/08/2010 09:42:15 AM
710 Views
He makes historical references as often as possible, or at least in pretty much everything I've seen
- 20/08/2010 12:37:02 PM
864 Views
As he was a history professor and writes histories and alternate histories, this is not surprising
- 20/08/2010 05:33:48 PM
1012 Views
I'm aware of that
- 20/08/2010 11:47:32 PM
738 Views
Re: I'm aware of that
- 21/08/2010 12:40:29 AM
1020 Views
Conservatives love Rome. I don't know why.
- 21/08/2010 01:20:27 AM
818 Views
Rome was more often than not governed by aristocrats and did, after all, invent the republic.
- 21/08/2010 04:50:53 PM
1150 Views
Except there doesn't seem to be any conflict between either position.
- 20/08/2010 10:06:20 AM
959 Views
He has to learn he needs to be crystal clear on sensitive issues
- 20/08/2010 02:03:43 PM
1020 Views
In Washington, one must always present the APPEARANCE of integrity...
- 20/08/2010 02:40:24 PM
905 Views
Clinton lied about the BJ but what is your airtight proof that Bush lied?
- 20/08/2010 07:44:53 PM
974 Views
This is a bit along the lines of what I have been thinking.
- 20/08/2010 07:49:15 PM
992 Views
I didn't see the problem either. He was simply stating the obvious.
- 21/08/2010 01:39:44 AM
729 Views
Then restating it for those who refused to hear it, so that someone else could refuse to hear it.
- 21/08/2010 04:22:30 PM
998 Views
Yes, his backtracking was quite pussy-ish. *NM*
- 21/08/2010 04:00:31 AM
364 Views
How did he "backtrack" exactly?
- 21/08/2010 04:35:33 PM
1048 Views
c'mon Joel. are you being intentionally thick?
- 21/08/2010 05:02:27 PM
1057 Views
Having read those quotes I don't think he was backtracking on anything. (With link to speech)
- 22/08/2010 06:27:06 AM
1010 Views
*NM*
did you take into your consideration
- 22/08/2010 03:50:59 PM
752 Views
I can't imagine why they would express concern over it. It wasn't controversial. That is on them
- 22/08/2010 03:58:32 PM
947 Views
I agree he is not backtracking
- 22/08/2010 06:49:36 PM
856 Views
While we're picking sides, I'm with Mook and Roland. 
- 22/08/2010 08:20:11 PM
781 Views
- 22/08/2010 08:20:11 PM
781 Views
I like how he's got rhetorical talents when it works
- 22/08/2010 08:32:15 PM
806 Views
nope just human *NM*
- 22/08/2010 08:37:17 PM
427 Views
*NM*
- 22/08/2010 08:37:17 PM
427 Views
that's not what Paul just said.
- 22/08/2010 08:42:24 PM
869 Views
- 22/08/2010 08:42:24 PM
869 Views
He couldn't stay out, no.
- 22/08/2010 08:56:47 PM
917 Views
I don't want to argue with you on a Sunday, my religion says I have to relax.
- 22/08/2010 09:03:54 PM
925 Views
- 22/08/2010 09:03:54 PM
925 Views
key word: seem
- 22/08/2010 09:06:40 PM
846 Views
I was only using that term for you guys. I don't feel like beating you with a rolling pin until you
- 22/08/2010 09:14:39 PM
742 Views
Seems I interpret his speech on the iftar differently from you and Tash - see my reply to Tash. *NM*
- 22/08/2010 09:25:13 PM
504 Views
I'm not even taking the time to comment on something so obvious as what he did. *NM*
- 22/08/2010 02:53:10 AM
489 Views
Joel
- 22/08/2010 05:37:45 AM
1058 Views
His phrasing in the first speech implied that it was a bad idea. But legally they have the right.
- 22/08/2010 06:32:59 AM
978 Views
nonsense
- 22/08/2010 03:39:30 PM
920 Views
I still don't see how it can be misinterpreted except by intent by the listener.
- 22/08/2010 04:08:52 PM
896 Views
so we have reached the point of no return...
- 22/08/2010 04:18:46 PM
906 Views
In your case it would have to be number 2.
- 22/08/2010 07:38:20 PM
880 Views
ah, but I have no agenda here...
- 22/08/2010 07:41:59 PM
713 Views
lol.<3 
- 22/08/2010 08:49:35 PM
889 Views
- 22/08/2010 08:49:35 PM
889 Views
that it is...
- 22/08/2010 08:57:05 PM
891 Views
hee. Well, I still don't agree with you, but at least you're snuggly.^_^ *NM*
- 22/08/2010 09:09:22 PM
667 Views
Tash you are very much a fair person in this world
- 22/08/2010 08:34:38 PM
985 Views
Or there is another option: 3) He was using tact.
- 22/08/2010 09:01:49 PM
913 Views
I really have to disagree with your interpretation of that first speech.
- 22/08/2010 09:22:32 PM
1179 Views
Lies, prevarication and deceit again, eh? 
- 22/08/2010 01:17:45 PM
1371 Views
- 22/08/2010 01:17:45 PM
1371 Views
that was a decent explanation....
- 22/08/2010 05:18:18 PM
822 Views
In the interests of fairness ( this does not support or detract from my position), here is the full
- 22/08/2010 09:22:50 PM
1116 Views