"That's why I didn't write this book, Larry."
Joe Klein, in his blog, Swampland, has opened his latest nonsensical column by calling Charles Krauthammer "Bomber Boy" over Krauthammer's expressed opposition to the New York Mosque project.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/08/13/intolerance-zoning/
Pretty tasteless if you ask me. Krauthammer is a respected conservative commentator who lives his life in a wheelchair. He is well-reasoned and soft-spoken, hardly a bomb thrower. He doesn't oppose the building of a mosque, but, like so many, feels that it is rubbing salt in the wound of 9-11 to build it at Ground Zero and that the mosque should be built elsewhere. He advocates zoning restrictions on certain sacred sites. Ground Zero is a sacred site-not just to New Yorkers, but to all Americans.
I have no issue with Mr Klein defending the religious freedom of Muslims. I defend that as well. Yet, Mr Klein, in attacking Krauthammer, makes zero mention of the questions surrounding the organizer of this project, Imam Feisal Addul Rauf, his comments about 9-11, his refusal to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization, his calls for America to become "shariah compliant", as well as the question of the mosque's financing.
Instead, Klein refers to conservatives who oppose the mosque trying to get a few "wedge votes" in the November election.
Make no mistake; this issue is growing and threatens to carry over into the elections, especially after President Obama has come out on the side of the project (I think). Even more unfortunately, in my view, is that this issue can only set back relations between Muslims and non-Muslims here in America. Lord knows I cannot speak for Muslims, but it seems to me that this is the last thing peaceful and loyal American Muslims need to deal with now. The people behind the Cordoba Center have the legal right to build their mosque/Islamic center wherever they want, but would it not be better to respect the wishes of those Americans, a majority of whom feel it is inappropriate at that particular site? Governor David Paterson has offered to help them find a spot elsewhere in the city, but has been rebuffed. The perception is rapidly growing that Rauf and his colleagues don't care a whit about those sensitivities. This week Salam al Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council defiantly dismissed those concerns on Fox News this week stating that he was "not going to be lectured" about it since Muslims also died on 9-11. He then proceeded to lecture us.
I have a hard time taking Klein seriously on much since he wrote that book, "Primary Colors" several years ago as "Anonymous", denied he was the author, then finally admitted it. Once, he described himself as a "raving, knee-jerk moderate" or something identical-I don't remember the exact words. To attack Krauthammer in this manner because he (Krauthammer)opposes a mosque at Ground Zero and proposes a zoning restriction is pretty low, if you ask me.
3 comments:
As an American Christian who has family in NYC and five church brothers and sisters who were working in the Pentagon on 9-11, I don't give a whit about those sensitivities you keep trumpeting either. I rather doubt that "a majority of the American people" are really paying attention either.
Everyone in American politics arrogates to themselves that they speak for "the people." Yeah, Nancy Pelosi does it too. She has a limited claim, in that she engineered a strategy over several years that brought her party back to majority status in the House, so she must have some finger on some pulse of the nation - but that doesn't mean she speaks "for the people."
As to ad hominem remarks about personalities, I find Joe Klein's writing insightful and well informed, and Charles Krauthammer's to be written with ideological blinders and blatant disregard for inconvenient facts. You, of course, would disagree. That's life.
Joe Klein disgusts me. His comment about Krauthammer was a cheap shot.
That would be a rather small wart on a very impressive career.
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