Obama All-In on Victory Mosque; Palin, Debra Burlingame of 9/11 Families, GOP Reacts

Yesterday when I linked a NYT article it had this "don't wake up; stay asleep" nap-time headline:

Obama Says Mosque Upholds Principle of Equal Treatment

Snoozer, huh?

I noted that ten paragraphs down there was real news: The president's aides whispered to the Times that he "has always felt strongly about the proposed community center and mosque."

Well, if my memory is right, then I found the actual headline before the New York Times did. Because they're now headlining the story:

Obama Strongly Backs Islam Center Near 9/11 Site

...which is accurate. And awful. But that's the headline, and Obama can't escape it. I would make a Kirk Lazarus joke but I'm not in a joking mood.

Correction: I had the order of the headlines wrong: First they said "strongly backs," then, when Obama claimed he was just talking about rights, they said he was defending equal rights. I had it, wrongly, the other way 'round in my head.

So they did not "catch up" with my take as I thought; instead, they retreated from the original (correct) take to spin for Obama and claim "nuance" where none exists.

The original headline was right: He strongly backs the victory mosque.

...

Debra Burlingame, bereaved sister of a victim of expansionist aggressive Islam, and head of 9/11 Families, issued a statement co-written with Tim Summer.

"Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America's heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see. Since that dark day, Americans have been asked to bear the burden of defending those values, again and again and again. Now this president declares that the victims of 9/11 and their families must bear another burden. We must stand silent at the last place in America where 9/11 is still remembered with reverence or risk being called religious bigots.

"Muslims have worshipped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a 'deeply traumatic event,' it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit.

"We are stunned by the president's willingness to disregard what Americans should be proud of: our enduring generosity to others on 9/11--a day when human decency triumphed over human depravity. On that day, when 3,000 of our fellow human beings were killed in a barbaric act of raw religious intolerance unlike any this country had ever seen, Americans did not turn outward with hatred or violence, we turned to each other, armed with nothing more than American flags and countless acts of kindness. In a breathtakingly inappropriate setting, the president has chosen to declare our memories of 9/11 obsolete and the sanctity of Ground Zero finished. No one who has lived this history and felt the sting of our country's loss that day can truly believe that putting our families through more wrenching heartache can be an act of peace.

"We will honor the memory of our loved ones. We will protect our children, whose lives will never be the same. We will not stand silent."

Noted lunatic Sarah Palin, whose crazy ideas are so odious and insane that only a tiny 70% fringe of the American voting public (including a majority of Democrats) agrees with her, put forth her further deranged gibberings on FaceBook.

Legitimate Questions for the President

by Sarah Palin on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 3:01pm

Mr. President, should they or should they not build a mosque steps away from where radical Islamists killed 3000 people? Please tell us your position. We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? And, no, this is not above your pay grade. If those who wish to build this Ground Zero mosque are sincerely interested in encouraging positive "cross-cultural engagement" and dialogue to show a moderate and tolerant face of Islam, then why haven't they recognized that the decision to build a mosque at this particular location is doing just the opposite? Mr. President, why aren't you encouraging the mosque developers to accept Governor Paterson's generous offer of assistance in finding a new location for the mosque on state land if they move it away from Ground Zero? Why haven't they jumped at this offer? Why are they apparently so set on building a mosque steps from what you have described, in agreement with me, as "hallowed ground"? I believe these are legitimate questions to ask.

- Sarah Palin
Former Governor of Alaska,
Wild-Eyed Schizoprhenic Delusional

I added her titles at the end.

Democrat and Republican Representatives sparred over this on CNN. One thing Democrats can all agree on -- no one should make a political judgment on the President's or the party's position on this issue. Shocking, I know.

From CNN's "State of the Union:"

VAN HOLLEN, [Democrat]: Candy, first of all, I think that when it comes to 9/11 and the memory of 9/11, we should all agree that it would be wrong to politicize this issue… I agree with the president. I think the issue is one for the people of New York City. And that's why the mayor of New York City, Mayor Bloomberg, put together an inter-faith group -- again, Christians, Jews, Muslims -- and on the 9/11 families, some have been in favor of it, some have been against it. You know, I think it's up to the people of New York. I mean, they are obviously the folks who are right there at the site of the attack of 9/11.

...

MCCARTHY [Republican]: I think the president -- if Chris is saying this is a New York issue, then why did the president engage in it? But if you listen what he first said, he brought up the exact location and said he supported it. Look, you look at the poll. There is a sensitivity to that area. Yes, we have the freedom. Build a mosque; build more than one mosque, but don't build it there. There are other places to build them. And I think that's really what America is saying.

McCarthy, I think, goes on to preview the national advertising campaign against the Democrats. I think this is clever -- they're going to ask Reagan's immortal question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

And yes, it's Congress that's up for reelection, not Obama, and Democrats have controlled Congress for four years.

McCarthy here responds to Crowely's question about taking the issue of the mosque to the polls in November.

MCCARTHY: Well, I think it's an overriding issue. The number one issue is going to be, in this election -- look, the Democrats have been in power, for the House and the Senate, for four years. Are people better off than they were four years ago?

Thanks to DanF. for some of that.

Corrected: Mrs. Burlingame lost a brother, not a husband, to aggressive expansionist Islam. I have corrected my original error.

posted by Ace at 11:57 AM

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