Tuesday, August 17, 2010 6:34:52 AM
How the "ground zero mosque" fear mongering began
Blogger Pamela Geller and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
A viciously anti-Muslim blogger, the New York Post and the right-wing media machine: How it all went down
By Justin Elliott
Monday, Aug 16, 2010 07:01 ET
A group of progressive Muslim-Americans plans to build an Islamic community center two and a half blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. They have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There's another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon [ http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/05/muslims_infiltrate_pentagon ], the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years.
In short, there is no good reason that the Cordoba House project should have been a major national news story, let alone controversy. And yet it has become just that, dominating the political conversation for weeks and prompting such a backlash that, according to a new poll [ http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/poll-68-of-americans-oppose-ground-zero-mosque.php ], nearly 7 in 10 Americans now say they oppose the project. How did the Cordoba House become so toxic, so fast?
In a story last week [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html?pagewanted=all )], the New York Times, which framed the project in a largely positive, noncontroversial light last December, argued that it was cursed from the start by "public relations missteps." But this isn't accurate. To a remarkable extent, a Salon review of the origins of the story found, the controversy was kicked up and driven by Pamela Geller [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53237634 ], a right-wing, viciously anti-Muslim, conspiracy-mongering blogger, whose sinister portrayal of the project was embraced by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.
Here's a timeline of how it all happened:
Dec. 8, 2009: The Times publishes a lengthy front-page look [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?pagewanted=all )] at the Cordoba project. "We want to push back against the extremists," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the lead organizer, is quoted as saying. Two Jewish leaders and two city officials, including the mayor's office, say they support the idea, as does the mother of a man killed on 9/11. An FBI spokesman says the imam has worked with the bureau. Besides a few third-tier right-wing blogs [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/12/giving-thanks.html ], including Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs site, no one much notices the Times story.
Dec. 21, 2009: Conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviews Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox. In hindsight, the segment is remarkable for its cordiality. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do."
May 6, 2010: After a unanimous vote by a New York City community board committee to approve the project, the AP runs a story [ http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-05-07-mosque-ground-zero_N.htm ]. It quotes relatives of 9/11 victims (called by the reporter), who offer differing opinions. The New York Post, meanwhile, runs a story [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/panel_approves_wtc_mosque_U46MkTSVJH3ZxqmNuuKmML ] under the inaccurate headline, "Panel Approves 'WTC' Mosque." Geller is less subtle, titling her post [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/monster-mosque-pushes-ahead-in-shadow-of-world-trade-center-islamic-death-and-destruction.html ] that day, "Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction." She writes on her Atlas Shrugs blog, "This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem." (To get an idea of where Geller is coming from, she once suggested [ http://gawker.com/5071373/bombshell-obama-malcom-x-love-child ] that Malcolm X was Obama's real father. Seriously.)
May 7, 2010: Geller's group [ http://sioaonline.com/ ], Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), launches "Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!" (SIOA 's associate director is Robert Spencer [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spencer_%28author%29 ], who makes his living writing and speaking about the evils of Islam.) Geller posts [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/sioa-action-alert-stop-the-911-mosque.html ] the names and contact information for the mayor and members of the community board, encouraging people to write. The board chair later reports [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html?pagewanted=all )] getting "hundreds and hundreds" of calls and e-mails from around the world.
May 8, 2010: Geller announces [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/stop-the-911-mosque-protest-may-29th-the-last-day-of-the-world.html ] SIOA's first protest against what she calls the "911 monster mosque" for May 29. She and Spencer and several other members of the professional anti-Islam industry will attend. (She also says that the protest will mark the dark day of "May 29, 1453, [when] the Ottoman forces led by the Sultan Mehmet II broke through the Byzantine defenses against the Muslim siege of Constantinople." The outrage-peddling New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser argues [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cat_out_of_the_bag_for_cougars_dhrrd8ANKoby3iOkrJwiII/1 ] in a note at the end of her column a couple of days later that "there are better places to put a mosque."
May 13, 2010: Peyser follows up with an entire column [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/mosque_madness_at_ground_zero_OQ34EB0MWS0lXuAnQau5uL ] devoted to "Mosque Madness at Ground Zero." This is a significant moment in the development of the "ground zero mosque" narrative: It's the first newspaper article that frames the project as inherently wrong and suspect, in the way that Geller has been framing it for months. Peyser in fact quotes Geller at length and promotes the anti-mosque protest of Stop Islamization of America, which Peyser describes as a "human-rights group." Peyser also reports — falsely [ http://mediamatters.org/research/201008100011 ] — that Cordoba House's opening date will be Sept. 11, 2011.
Lots of opinion makers on the right read the Post, so it's not surprising that, starting that very day, the mosque story spread through the conservative — and then mainstream — media like fire through dry grass. Geller appeared [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/hannity-show-podcast-atlas-vs-muslim-american-congress.html ] on Sean Hannity's radio show. The Washington Examiner ran an outraged column [ http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/A-mosque-to-mock-9_11_s-victims-and-families-93881779.html (and see http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53327380 )] about honoring the 9/11 dead. So did Investor's Business Daily. Smelling blood, the Post assigned news reporters to cover the ins and outs of the Cordoba House development daily. Fox News, the Post's television sibling, went all out [ http://mediamatters.org/research/201008130015 ].
Within a month, Rudy Giuliani had called the mosque a "desecration." Within another month, Sarah Palin had tweeted [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20010892-503544.html (also [items linked in] http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52413716 and following and http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52413828 and following] her famous "peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate" tweet. Peter King and Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty followed suit — with political reporters and television news programs dutifully covering "both sides" of the controversy.
Geller had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
Copyright ©2010 Salon Media Group, Inc.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins/index.html [with comments]
=====
Embracing the Holy War
Josh Marshall | August 15, 2010, 8:16PM
A few weeks back I asked whether we weren't seeing [ http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/islamophobia_on_the_rise.php ] a perceptible rise in Islamophobia, paradoxically many years after the 9/11 attacks. And if we are, why? There are many potential and probable reasons. But of all the emails I received, the couple that struck me most [ http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/more_on_islamophobia.php ] were the ones that pointed to George W. Bush. Yes, him, George W. Bush. Whatever his other errors and shortcomings, with the exception of a few very poorly chosen words at the outset (calling the War Against Terror a "crusade [ http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism/ ]"), Bush was quite consistent in arguing that America was not in a war against Islam. And that put a real brake on the forces of xenophobia, extremist religion and religious hatred, almost all of which were in his own party.
For those of us who believe his policies in the Middle East were close to catastrophic, this fact may seem of somewhat trivial importance. But in the US I think it was actually a pretty big deal. Conservatives' ability to play on xenophobic fears about President Obama's race and Islamic ancestry has clearly played into the politics. But as TPM Reader CB wrote last month ...
His being President and the nominal head of the GOP basically kept a lid on many of the fanatical Islamophobes and the few who did rear their ugly heads (Tancredo, Bachmann and others) were essentially kept away from the Party and to some degree the media (by being told to keep their mouths basically shut on the issue or just being ignored by the media because they were viewed as merely the fringe).
Which brings me to a very interesting piece [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41076.html (next below)] in Politico today. In this piece by Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman argue that the GOP's harsh turn against Islam represents an effort to repudiate the former president's legacy on this front and embrace the 'Clash of Civilizations' worldview [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34514807 and preceding and following] or what might more properly be termed a Holy War between America and Islam.
© 2010 TPM Media LLC (emphasis in original)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/08/i_few_weeks_back_i.php
=====
GOP takes harsher stance toward Islam
The Republican response to Obama's speech marks a shift in the party's posture toward Islam.
AP
By: Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman
August 15, 2010 07:09 AM EDT
The harsh Republican response to President Barack Obama's defense of a mosque near ground zero marks a dramatic shift in the party's posture toward Islam — from a once active courtship of Muslim voters to a very public tolerance after Sept. 11 to an openly aired sense of mistrust.
Republican leaders have largely abandoned former President George W. Bush's post-Sept. 11 rhetorical embrace of American Muslims and his insistence — always controversial inside the party — that Islam is a religion of peace. This weekend, former Bush aides were among the very few Republicans siding with Obama, as many of the party's leaders have moved toward more vocal denunciations of Islam's role in violence abroad and suspicion of its place at home.
The shift plays to a hostility toward Islam among many Republican voters, and it fits with traditional Republican attacks on Democratic weakness on security policy.
"Bush went against the grain of his own constituency," said Allen Roth, a political aide to conservative billionaire Ron Lauder and, independently, a key organizer of the fight against the mosque. "This is part of an underlying set of security issues that could play a significant role in the elections this November."
Obama's remarks provide a clear, national focus for the simmering question of Islam in American life, and Republicans showed every sign Saturday of beginning to capitalize on it, with Republican candidates in New York and Florida seeking to inject the issue into local races as Democrats largely held their silence.
That stance in the GOP — both in terms of political strategy and policy views — appears to be carrying the day. Most of the potential Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Sarah Palin, came out sharply against the mosque.
And while most of its opponents note that they aren't opposing Islam, just this project, Republican attempts to build bridges with Muslims are few and far between — although some say that's because early post-Sept. 11 efforts were met with deep resistance. Republicans have stopped winning the Muslim votes they once split with Democrats, and largely stopped seeking them.
The spectrum ranges from silence on the issue to politicians and groups, like Keep America Safe, led by Liz Cheney and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, gearing up to engage the battle over the mosque and the basket of other issues involving the Obama administration's relationship with Muslims at home and abroad.
"The president supports a mosque at ground zero led by a man who blamed America for 9/11, his top intelligence official preaches the true meaning of jihad, and his attorney general can't even say the words 'radical Islam,'" said Michael Goldfarb, an adviser to Keep America Safe. "You start to worry they don't understand who the enemy is, and so Republicans might understandably feel like they have to spell it out for them."
Obama, meanwhile, only fed Republicans' eagerness to engage the issue with remarks Saturday morning that appeared to narrow his broader embrace of Islam in America to a defense of the legal right to build a mosque, though his office later issued a third statement saying he hadn't backed off his original remarks.
Muslim leaders say, regretfully, that they also see a dramatic change.
Republicans have "shifted completely away from the Bush administration line on relations with Islam and they've obviously made the political calculation that bashing Islam and Muslims is a winning issue for them," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who blamed the "tea party movement [for] liberating the inner bigot in people."
The shift has various causes. One is simply the freedom of opposition. "The stronger imperative for Bush's stance was geopolitical," said former Bush speechwriter David Frum, referring to the Bush administration's reliance on Islamic allies for the prosecution of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now Republicans are liberated to say what many think, and what many of their supporters want to hear.
But the attacks on what is now nationally known as the "Ground Zero mosque" — it is a few blocks north of the site — also stand in for a broader turn in the cultural politics of the right, in which some of the social issues that served as the emotional core of candidates' appeals have lost their power. A recent CNN poll showing that 68 percent of Americans oppose the construction of the mosque also found that about half think there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. No political genius is required to decide which issue to run on.
The debate over the mosque's locale had been brewing in the crucible of the New York tabloids for parts of the spring, then died down. Then came an attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square, by a confessed suspect who'd said he planned mass deaths as vengeance for Muslims in the two wars being waged by the United States in the Mideast, which recalled for many residents the constant sense of edginess and fear the Sept. 11 attacks inspired.
New York's beleaguered Republicans, seeing an opening, have seized and driven the mosque issue, and Roth and other mainstream figures have worked to insulate it from more radical anti-Islamic voices, like blogger Pamela Geller, who might marginalize the cause.
Leading New York Republicans acknowledge a shift from the Bush years, but say Muslim leaders, not Republicans, are to blame.
"George Bush made every attempt to reach out," said Rep. Pete King, a leading critic of the mosque project. "The Muslim community did not reciprocate, did not respond. After Sept. 11, some of them became entrenched and really didn't know how to cope.
"Somehow the leadership in the community does not impel them forward to be more part of the community. That's my reading of it," said King, who also noted that sensitivities involving the site are far deeper, and more real, than many are willing to recognize beyond the boundaries of New York.
Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles Burlingame was the pilot of the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon and who serves on the board of Keep America Safe, agreed that there is an emotional component but rejected the notion that the mosque issue is a "feelings" concept instead of part of a larger debate about different cultures and how the U.S. should engage with Muslim culture within the country.
"I do ascribe to the 'clash of civilizations' theory now," said Burlingame, who has been among the main voices questioning the funding behind the proposed mosque, and the intents of Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind it. She said, as she did after Obama's speech, that many Muslims have practiced peacefully in the U.S. before and after the attacks, but that Rauf has made statements supporting radical elements of Islam, and that the location was chosen to be provocative.
She criticized those, mostly led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who are defending the project under freedom of religion, saying, "That's a Western concept."
"This is a different model," she said, arguing that in the United States people "for generations had been raised on this concept of separation of church and state, and that you don't trash someone because of their religion ... but that's not what we're dealing with here."
"I think the challenge for us is enlisting the Muslims who have already bought into the American program and not adjusting" to Muslim culture, she added. For Burlingame, the issue is not political — she said she objects to the content as well as the form of efforts by Bloomberg and others to push back because the goal is "to shut you up."
"We're talking to the wrong people," said New York City firefighter Tim Brown, a survivor of the attacks who has worked with Burlingame. He suggested that "radical" Muslims are being recognized in the United States as part of the religious dialogue, as in the case of the mosque. "Whoever made this decision and whoever set us on this path, and I don't care if it's the Bush administration or whoever, it's the wrong path."
Whatever the cause of the shift, the end of the Bush-era outreach aligns with the views of much of the Republican base. A Pew poll found last year that 55 percent of conservative Republicans believe Islam encourages violence.
The pre-Sept. 11 Republican Party actively courted Muslim voters in key states like Michigan. An energetic effort to lead the socially conservative, relatively affluent community into the GOP was led by power broker Grover Norquist — who didn't respond to a request to talk about Republicans and Muslims. But it failed, and the present-day Republican Party has more or less given them up for those lost and alienated by American policies in the Middle East and — as Republicans see it — misled by their own leaders into ambiguous public positions.
"The leading members of that community have not settled inside the Republican Party, and so their voice is lesser," said Frum.
Bush is hardly remembered fondly by Muslim Americans, many of whom blame him for a wave of detentions and deportations immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks and for conflict with Muslims abroad. But a less-remembered element of his legacy is the battle he fought within the Republican Party on Islam's behalf.
By the day after the attacks, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer recalled, Bush had expressed his intense concern at the possibility of a backlash against American Muslims, and his aides had begun discussing "the need to balance getting America ready for war against the people who carried out the attacks without infringing on Muslims' right to practice their religion."
On September 17, 2001, Bush visited Washington's Islamic Center with a simple message: "Islam is peace."
Those words didn't sit well with key segments of the Republican base, including some Christian leaders. In June 2002, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention suggested that the God of Muslims would "turn you into a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people."
Fleischer took public exception to the statement on Bush's behalf.
"It's something that the president definitely disagrees with. Islam is a religion of peace, that's what the president believes," he said.
Today, Fleischer says he thinks the mosque's organizers would be more sensible to go elsewhere, but that the GOP risks taking too hard a line on Islam as the 2012 elections approach.
"The real issue is going to be the rhetoric of presidential candidates in '11 and '12, and whether they try to strike a balance or whether is it much more vitriolic," he said. "We are at war with radical Islam; we are not at war with Muslims writ large, and we have to find that right balance."
Other former Bush aides backed President Obama's defense of the mosque. Former Bush consultant Mark McKinnon called Obama's Friday remarks an example of "bold and decisive leadership."
"An enormously complex and emotional issue — but ultimately the right thing to do. A president is president for every citizen, including every Muslim citizen," said former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. "Obama is correct that the way to marginalize radicalism is to respect the best traditions of Islam and protect the religious liberty of Muslim Americans. It is radicals who imagine an American war on Islam. But our conflict is with the radicals alone."
Among the first conservative groups gunning for the ground zero mosque was the National Republican Trust PAC, whose television ad two broadcast networks refused to air on the grounds that it seemed to tie the organizers of the community center, without evidence, to the planners of the terror attacks.
But it became a hit on YouTube, and combined with the complaints of New York politicians and some conservative bloggers, the project became a national issue.
"Once we brought this issue to the American people, the politicians were falling all over each other to get out in front of it," said Scott Wheeler, the group's executive director.
The GOP's likely presidential candidates drew a spectrum of shades of opposition but not a single one sided with Bloomberg in backing the mosque on the grounds of private property and religious freedom.
"Ground zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts," wrote Palin on July 18, calling on "peaceful Muslims" to "refudiate" it.
"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," wrote former House Speaker Newt Gingrich a day later.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, though he represents a relatively heavily Muslim state, rebuffed pleas from local Muslim leaders to back off his suggestion that the mosque would "degrade and disrespect" the Trade Center site. A spokesman for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney cited both "the wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda" in opposing it.
But it was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who seemed to fit the issue most clearly into a recognizable political category of culture war.
"Is it just that we can offend Americans and Christians, but not foreigners and Muslims?" he asked.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41076.html [with comments]
=====
Searching For Bryan Fischer: One Top Social Conservative's Record Of Xenophobia
Bryan Fischer
Jillian Rayfield | August 16, 2010, 8:40AM
Top social conservative Bryan Fischer [(items linked in http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53237307 ] has attracted a lot of notice over the last week for his polarizing comments about Muslims. And while Fischer may be the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association, AFA spokesman Cindy Roberts remains emphatic that his "analysis" of the "issues" is his and his alone. Roberts told TPM that Fischer's writings, many of which are featured on Fischer's AFA website blog "Focal Point [ http://action.afa.net/Blogs/Blog.aspx?blog=2147483746 ]," are "his personal opinion" and "not AFA's position."
But Fischer and the AFA alike, both with ties to mainstream conservative politicians, have a long and colorful history of championing social conservative causes that are often discriminatory, and in some cases, just plain bizarre.
As we've reported, Fischer said last week [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/top_social_conservative_defends_his_no_more_mosque.php ] that he thinks there should be "no more mosques, period" in the U.S. because "every single mosque is a potential terror training center or recruitment center for jihad." He is also convinced that Gov. David Paterson is trying to impose sharia law [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/social_conservative_bryan_fischer_paterson_wants_t.php ] on New York because he offered to help the Cordoba House developers get state land for their Muslim community center if they agreed to relocate from the controversial planned site a few blocks from Ground Zero.
But last week didn't exactly mark Fischer's first day on the anti-Muslim job. Last year, he called [ http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/conservative-christian-group-calls-for-ban-on-muslims-in-military.php ] for a ban on Muslims in the military after Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly [(. . .)] went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood back in November. Fischer said his views were "not Islamophobia," but "Islamo-realism." He then followed up [ http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147493343 ] with a call to "restrict Muslim immigration to U.S." and "repatriate Muslim immigrants to Muslim countries which share their values."
"Should any nation welcome to its shores immigrants who have a solemn, sacred obligation to kill as many of their hosts as possible?" Fischer asked [ http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147493395 ]. "That's a form of suicidal insanity." (h/t RightWingWatch [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/afas-fischer-muslim-citizens-are-traitors-and-must-be-expelled ].)
And Fischer's not a particularly big fan of gays and lesbians either. He's written [ http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147491522 ] that the U.S. should impose "legal sanctions for homosexual behavior," argued [ http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/100807 ] that "a practicing homosexual should not serve in public office," and claimed [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/top_social_conservative.php ] that Hitler used gay soldiers because they "basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after."
Fischer's also expressed outrage [ http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201006080006 ] that Indian-Americans win a lot of spelling bees, claiming that the U.S. needs to "stop this outrageous display of ethnic favoritism." He's expressed some glee over a reported trend that more educated women are having fewer children, which he interpreted [ http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/100626 ] this way: "What this means quite simply is that liberals are breeding themselves out of existence."
And, in arguably his strangest position, Fischer wrote that killer whale Tilikum, who killed [ http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-02-24/news/os-sidebar-tilikum-the-whale-20100224_1_seaworld-trainers-killer-whales-orca ] a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando in February, was just a part of [ http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147492239 ] the "ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture." Fischer quoted Exodus to prove his point: "To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, "the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death." Fischer continued: "If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives."
Roberts, the AFA spokesperson, did tell TPM last week that Fischer's blog posts were not official AFA positions, especially regarding the "Ground Zero mosque": "We're not taking a stand on anything about the mosque situation."
But the AFA itself is also known for taking on pet conservative causes that often appeal to the right-wing fringes. The AFA, a non-profit, describes [ http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=31 ] its purpose as follows:
The American Family Association represents and stands for traditional family values and exists to motivate and equip citizens to reform our culture to reflect Biblical truth on which it was founded.
For example, the AFA put out an August 3 press release [ http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497139 ] that encouraged supporters to email the public relations director of Sears because "Sears is currently offering giant posters of total nud**y on its website. Sears knows they are selling smut."
The release links to the posters -- or rather, links to a warning page [ http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497099 ] about the sexual content of the posters, which then links to another warning page [ http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497180 ] about the sexual content of the posters, which then links to the posters [ http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497177 ] (admittedly NSFW) -- but also describes them for the faint of heart: "These aren't just posters of scantily-clad women. Some of them depict groups of people, lesbians and others engaged in ***ual activities. Very little is left to the imagination."
Other recent AFA boycotts include the Home Depot [ http://action.afa.net/item.aspx?id=2147496231 ] and The Today Show [ http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147496348 ], in both instances because the AFA disagreed with their positions on gay rights.
AFA Action, the public policy arm of the group, focuses more on objectionable non-Christian goings-on in politics. After Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim member of Congress, took his swearing-in photograph [ http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/04/ellison-koran/ ] with his hand on the Koran [the one once owned by Thomas Jefferson], the AFA asked [ http://web.archive.org/web/20070522063621/http://www.afa.net/aa112806_2.asp ]: "What book will America base it's values on, the Bible or the Koran?" In July, 2007, the AFA called it an "abomination" that a Hindu gave the opening prayer at the day's Senate session, since [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071202007.html ] he would be "seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god."
But the AFA is not just another fringe conservative group. It is a mainstay among social conservatives, with close ties to many Republican politicians.
Several Republican lawmakers appeared [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/can-anyone-be-too-radical-todays-gop ] alongside Fischer at a live webcast hosted by the Family Research Council back in March, including Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
And, as ThinkProgress [ http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/20/afa-radio-health/ ] reported, many Republicans often appear on the AFA's talk radio arm. Sens. Sam Brownback (KS) [(items linked in http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39423407 and preceding and following)] and Mike Johanns (NE) are frequent guests.
When TPM asked Roberts about these ties, and about the AFA's co-sponsoring of September's Values Voter Summit [ http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/ ] which features a litany of mainstream Republican politicians, she insisted that the AFA "[doesn't] endorse any party."
But the summit website's list of invited and confirmed speakers tells a slightly different tale. So far, in addition to Fischer himself, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Pence, former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53074206 ], and Bachmann are confirmed speakers. Others, like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, and Mitch McConnell were invited but are not yet confirmed, and are featured on the website. There are no Democratic elected officials on the list.
© 2010 TPM Media LLC (emphasis in original)
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/sears_spelling_bees_and_sea_creatures_bryan_fischer_and_the_afas_strange_and_lurid_history_of_hate.php [with comments]
=====
Pro-Mosque Mom Who Lost Pregnant Daughter In Trade Center: 9/11 Families 'Not Monolithic'
August 16, 2010
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/pro-mosque-mom-who-lost-pregnant-daughter-in-trade-center-911-families-not-monolithic.php [with comments]
---
Bloomberg: 'Sad Day For America' If Ground Zero Mosque Plan Is Killed
08/16/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/bloomberg-sad-day-for-ame_n_683692.html [with comments]
---
also e.g. (items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13088854 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53397658 and preceding (and any future following) (. . .)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53399073 and preceding and following
Blogger Pamela Geller and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
A viciously anti-Muslim blogger, the New York Post and the right-wing media machine: How it all went down
By Justin Elliott
Monday, Aug 16, 2010 07:01 ET
A group of progressive Muslim-Americans plans to build an Islamic community center two and a half blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. They have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There's another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon [ http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/05/muslims_infiltrate_pentagon ], the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years.
In short, there is no good reason that the Cordoba House project should have been a major national news story, let alone controversy. And yet it has become just that, dominating the political conversation for weeks and prompting such a backlash that, according to a new poll [ http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/poll-68-of-americans-oppose-ground-zero-mosque.php ], nearly 7 in 10 Americans now say they oppose the project. How did the Cordoba House become so toxic, so fast?
In a story last week [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html?pagewanted=all )], the New York Times, which framed the project in a largely positive, noncontroversial light last December, argued that it was cursed from the start by "public relations missteps." But this isn't accurate. To a remarkable extent, a Salon review of the origins of the story found, the controversy was kicked up and driven by Pamela Geller [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53237634 ], a right-wing, viciously anti-Muslim, conspiracy-mongering blogger, whose sinister portrayal of the project was embraced by Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.
Here's a timeline of how it all happened:
Dec. 8, 2009: The Times publishes a lengthy front-page look [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?pagewanted=all )] at the Cordoba project. "We want to push back against the extremists," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the lead organizer, is quoted as saying. Two Jewish leaders and two city officials, including the mayor's office, say they support the idea, as does the mother of a man killed on 9/11. An FBI spokesman says the imam has worked with the bureau. Besides a few third-tier right-wing blogs [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/12/giving-thanks.html ], including Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs site, no one much notices the Times story.
Dec. 21, 2009: Conservative media personality Laura Ingraham interviews Abdul Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, while guest-hosting "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox. In hindsight, the segment is remarkable for its cordiality. "I can't find many people who really have a problem with it," Ingraham says of the Cordoba project, adding at the end of the interview, "I like what you're trying to do."
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7WbTv_gsx4 (embedded)] (This segment also includes onscreen the first use that we've seen of the misnomer "ground zero mosque.") After the segment — and despite the front-page Times story — there were no news articles on the mosque for five and a half months, according to a search of the Nexis newspaper archive.
May 6, 2010: After a unanimous vote by a New York City community board committee to approve the project, the AP runs a story [ http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-05-07-mosque-ground-zero_N.htm ]. It quotes relatives of 9/11 victims (called by the reporter), who offer differing opinions. The New York Post, meanwhile, runs a story [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/panel_approves_wtc_mosque_U46MkTSVJH3ZxqmNuuKmML ] under the inaccurate headline, "Panel Approves 'WTC' Mosque." Geller is less subtle, titling her post [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/monster-mosque-pushes-ahead-in-shadow-of-world-trade-center-islamic-death-and-destruction.html ] that day, "Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction." She writes on her Atlas Shrugs blog, "This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem." (To get an idea of where Geller is coming from, she once suggested [ http://gawker.com/5071373/bombshell-obama-malcom-x-love-child ] that Malcolm X was Obama's real father. Seriously.)
May 7, 2010: Geller's group [ http://sioaonline.com/ ], Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), launches "Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!" (SIOA 's associate director is Robert Spencer [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spencer_%28author%29 ], who makes his living writing and speaking about the evils of Islam.) Geller posts [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/sioa-action-alert-stop-the-911-mosque.html ] the names and contact information for the mayor and members of the community board, encouraging people to write. The board chair later reports [ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html?pagewanted=all )] getting "hundreds and hundreds" of calls and e-mails from around the world.
May 8, 2010: Geller announces [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/stop-the-911-mosque-protest-may-29th-the-last-day-of-the-world.html ] SIOA's first protest against what she calls the "911 monster mosque" for May 29. She and Spencer and several other members of the professional anti-Islam industry will attend. (She also says that the protest will mark the dark day of "May 29, 1453, [when] the Ottoman forces led by the Sultan Mehmet II broke through the Byzantine defenses against the Muslim siege of Constantinople." The outrage-peddling New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser argues [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cat_out_of_the_bag_for_cougars_dhrrd8ANKoby3iOkrJwiII/1 ] in a note at the end of her column a couple of days later that "there are better places to put a mosque."
May 13, 2010: Peyser follows up with an entire column [ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/mosque_madness_at_ground_zero_OQ34EB0MWS0lXuAnQau5uL ] devoted to "Mosque Madness at Ground Zero." This is a significant moment in the development of the "ground zero mosque" narrative: It's the first newspaper article that frames the project as inherently wrong and suspect, in the way that Geller has been framing it for months. Peyser in fact quotes Geller at length and promotes the anti-mosque protest of Stop Islamization of America, which Peyser describes as a "human-rights group." Peyser also reports — falsely [ http://mediamatters.org/research/201008100011 ] — that Cordoba House's opening date will be Sept. 11, 2011.
Lots of opinion makers on the right read the Post, so it's not surprising that, starting that very day, the mosque story spread through the conservative — and then mainstream — media like fire through dry grass. Geller appeared [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/hannity-show-podcast-atlas-vs-muslim-american-congress.html ] on Sean Hannity's radio show. The Washington Examiner ran an outraged column [ http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/A-mosque-to-mock-9_11_s-victims-and-families-93881779.html (and see http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53327380 )] about honoring the 9/11 dead. So did Investor's Business Daily. Smelling blood, the Post assigned news reporters to cover the ins and outs of the Cordoba House development daily. Fox News, the Post's television sibling, went all out [ http://mediamatters.org/research/201008130015 ].
Within a month, Rudy Giuliani had called the mosque a "desecration." Within another month, Sarah Palin had tweeted [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20010892-503544.html (also [items linked in] http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52413716 and following and http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52413828 and following] her famous "peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate" tweet. Peter King and Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty followed suit — with political reporters and television news programs dutifully covering "both sides" of the controversy.
Geller had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
Copyright ©2010 Salon Media Group, Inc.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/16/ground_zero_mosque_origins/index.html [with comments]
=====
Embracing the Holy War
Josh Marshall | August 15, 2010, 8:16PM
A few weeks back I asked whether we weren't seeing [ http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/islamophobia_on_the_rise.php ] a perceptible rise in Islamophobia, paradoxically many years after the 9/11 attacks. And if we are, why? There are many potential and probable reasons. But of all the emails I received, the couple that struck me most [ http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/more_on_islamophobia.php ] were the ones that pointed to George W. Bush. Yes, him, George W. Bush. Whatever his other errors and shortcomings, with the exception of a few very poorly chosen words at the outset (calling the War Against Terror a "crusade [ http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism/ ]"), Bush was quite consistent in arguing that America was not in a war against Islam. And that put a real brake on the forces of xenophobia, extremist religion and religious hatred, almost all of which were in his own party.
For those of us who believe his policies in the Middle East were close to catastrophic, this fact may seem of somewhat trivial importance. But in the US I think it was actually a pretty big deal. Conservatives' ability to play on xenophobic fears about President Obama's race and Islamic ancestry has clearly played into the politics. But as TPM Reader CB wrote last month ...
His being President and the nominal head of the GOP basically kept a lid on many of the fanatical Islamophobes and the few who did rear their ugly heads (Tancredo, Bachmann and others) were essentially kept away from the Party and to some degree the media (by being told to keep their mouths basically shut on the issue or just being ignored by the media because they were viewed as merely the fringe).
Which brings me to a very interesting piece [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41076.html (next below)] in Politico today. In this piece by Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman argue that the GOP's harsh turn against Islam represents an effort to repudiate the former president's legacy on this front and embrace the 'Clash of Civilizations' worldview [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34514807 and preceding and following] or what might more properly be termed a Holy War between America and Islam.
© 2010 TPM Media LLC (emphasis in original)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/08/i_few_weeks_back_i.php
=====
GOP takes harsher stance toward Islam
The Republican response to Obama's speech marks a shift in the party's posture toward Islam.
AP
By: Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman
August 15, 2010 07:09 AM EDT
The harsh Republican response to President Barack Obama's defense of a mosque near ground zero marks a dramatic shift in the party's posture toward Islam — from a once active courtship of Muslim voters to a very public tolerance after Sept. 11 to an openly aired sense of mistrust.
Republican leaders have largely abandoned former President George W. Bush's post-Sept. 11 rhetorical embrace of American Muslims and his insistence — always controversial inside the party — that Islam is a religion of peace. This weekend, former Bush aides were among the very few Republicans siding with Obama, as many of the party's leaders have moved toward more vocal denunciations of Islam's role in violence abroad and suspicion of its place at home.
The shift plays to a hostility toward Islam among many Republican voters, and it fits with traditional Republican attacks on Democratic weakness on security policy.
"Bush went against the grain of his own constituency," said Allen Roth, a political aide to conservative billionaire Ron Lauder and, independently, a key organizer of the fight against the mosque. "This is part of an underlying set of security issues that could play a significant role in the elections this November."
Obama's remarks provide a clear, national focus for the simmering question of Islam in American life, and Republicans showed every sign Saturday of beginning to capitalize on it, with Republican candidates in New York and Florida seeking to inject the issue into local races as Democrats largely held their silence.
That stance in the GOP — both in terms of political strategy and policy views — appears to be carrying the day. Most of the potential Republican presidential hopefuls, led by Sarah Palin, came out sharply against the mosque.
And while most of its opponents note that they aren't opposing Islam, just this project, Republican attempts to build bridges with Muslims are few and far between — although some say that's because early post-Sept. 11 efforts were met with deep resistance. Republicans have stopped winning the Muslim votes they once split with Democrats, and largely stopped seeking them.
The spectrum ranges from silence on the issue to politicians and groups, like Keep America Safe, led by Liz Cheney and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, gearing up to engage the battle over the mosque and the basket of other issues involving the Obama administration's relationship with Muslims at home and abroad.
"The president supports a mosque at ground zero led by a man who blamed America for 9/11, his top intelligence official preaches the true meaning of jihad, and his attorney general can't even say the words 'radical Islam,'" said Michael Goldfarb, an adviser to Keep America Safe. "You start to worry they don't understand who the enemy is, and so Republicans might understandably feel like they have to spell it out for them."
Obama, meanwhile, only fed Republicans' eagerness to engage the issue with remarks Saturday morning that appeared to narrow his broader embrace of Islam in America to a defense of the legal right to build a mosque, though his office later issued a third statement saying he hadn't backed off his original remarks.
Muslim leaders say, regretfully, that they also see a dramatic change.
Republicans have "shifted completely away from the Bush administration line on relations with Islam and they've obviously made the political calculation that bashing Islam and Muslims is a winning issue for them," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who blamed the "tea party movement [for] liberating the inner bigot in people."
The shift has various causes. One is simply the freedom of opposition. "The stronger imperative for Bush's stance was geopolitical," said former Bush speechwriter David Frum, referring to the Bush administration's reliance on Islamic allies for the prosecution of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now Republicans are liberated to say what many think, and what many of their supporters want to hear.
But the attacks on what is now nationally known as the "Ground Zero mosque" — it is a few blocks north of the site — also stand in for a broader turn in the cultural politics of the right, in which some of the social issues that served as the emotional core of candidates' appeals have lost their power. A recent CNN poll showing that 68 percent of Americans oppose the construction of the mosque also found that about half think there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. No political genius is required to decide which issue to run on.
The debate over the mosque's locale had been brewing in the crucible of the New York tabloids for parts of the spring, then died down. Then came an attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square, by a confessed suspect who'd said he planned mass deaths as vengeance for Muslims in the two wars being waged by the United States in the Mideast, which recalled for many residents the constant sense of edginess and fear the Sept. 11 attacks inspired.
New York's beleaguered Republicans, seeing an opening, have seized and driven the mosque issue, and Roth and other mainstream figures have worked to insulate it from more radical anti-Islamic voices, like blogger Pamela Geller, who might marginalize the cause.
Leading New York Republicans acknowledge a shift from the Bush years, but say Muslim leaders, not Republicans, are to blame.
"George Bush made every attempt to reach out," said Rep. Pete King, a leading critic of the mosque project. "The Muslim community did not reciprocate, did not respond. After Sept. 11, some of them became entrenched and really didn't know how to cope.
"Somehow the leadership in the community does not impel them forward to be more part of the community. That's my reading of it," said King, who also noted that sensitivities involving the site are far deeper, and more real, than many are willing to recognize beyond the boundaries of New York.
Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles Burlingame was the pilot of the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon and who serves on the board of Keep America Safe, agreed that there is an emotional component but rejected the notion that the mosque issue is a "feelings" concept instead of part of a larger debate about different cultures and how the U.S. should engage with Muslim culture within the country.
"I do ascribe to the 'clash of civilizations' theory now," said Burlingame, who has been among the main voices questioning the funding behind the proposed mosque, and the intents of Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind it. She said, as she did after Obama's speech, that many Muslims have practiced peacefully in the U.S. before and after the attacks, but that Rauf has made statements supporting radical elements of Islam, and that the location was chosen to be provocative.
She criticized those, mostly led by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who are defending the project under freedom of religion, saying, "That's a Western concept."
"This is a different model," she said, arguing that in the United States people "for generations had been raised on this concept of separation of church and state, and that you don't trash someone because of their religion ... but that's not what we're dealing with here."
"I think the challenge for us is enlisting the Muslims who have already bought into the American program and not adjusting" to Muslim culture, she added. For Burlingame, the issue is not political — she said she objects to the content as well as the form of efforts by Bloomberg and others to push back because the goal is "to shut you up."
"We're talking to the wrong people," said New York City firefighter Tim Brown, a survivor of the attacks who has worked with Burlingame. He suggested that "radical" Muslims are being recognized in the United States as part of the religious dialogue, as in the case of the mosque. "Whoever made this decision and whoever set us on this path, and I don't care if it's the Bush administration or whoever, it's the wrong path."
Whatever the cause of the shift, the end of the Bush-era outreach aligns with the views of much of the Republican base. A Pew poll found last year that 55 percent of conservative Republicans believe Islam encourages violence.
The pre-Sept. 11 Republican Party actively courted Muslim voters in key states like Michigan. An energetic effort to lead the socially conservative, relatively affluent community into the GOP was led by power broker Grover Norquist — who didn't respond to a request to talk about Republicans and Muslims. But it failed, and the present-day Republican Party has more or less given them up for those lost and alienated by American policies in the Middle East and — as Republicans see it — misled by their own leaders into ambiguous public positions.
"The leading members of that community have not settled inside the Republican Party, and so their voice is lesser," said Frum.
Bush is hardly remembered fondly by Muslim Americans, many of whom blame him for a wave of detentions and deportations immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks and for conflict with Muslims abroad. But a less-remembered element of his legacy is the battle he fought within the Republican Party on Islam's behalf.
By the day after the attacks, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer recalled, Bush had expressed his intense concern at the possibility of a backlash against American Muslims, and his aides had begun discussing "the need to balance getting America ready for war against the people who carried out the attacks without infringing on Muslims' right to practice their religion."
On September 17, 2001, Bush visited Washington's Islamic Center with a simple message: "Islam is peace."
Those words didn't sit well with key segments of the Republican base, including some Christian leaders. In June 2002, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention suggested that the God of Muslims would "turn you into a terrorist that'll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people."
Fleischer took public exception to the statement on Bush's behalf.
"It's something that the president definitely disagrees with. Islam is a religion of peace, that's what the president believes," he said.
Today, Fleischer says he thinks the mosque's organizers would be more sensible to go elsewhere, but that the GOP risks taking too hard a line on Islam as the 2012 elections approach.
"The real issue is going to be the rhetoric of presidential candidates in '11 and '12, and whether they try to strike a balance or whether is it much more vitriolic," he said. "We are at war with radical Islam; we are not at war with Muslims writ large, and we have to find that right balance."
Other former Bush aides backed President Obama's defense of the mosque. Former Bush consultant Mark McKinnon called Obama's Friday remarks an example of "bold and decisive leadership."
"An enormously complex and emotional issue — but ultimately the right thing to do. A president is president for every citizen, including every Muslim citizen," said former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. "Obama is correct that the way to marginalize radicalism is to respect the best traditions of Islam and protect the religious liberty of Muslim Americans. It is radicals who imagine an American war on Islam. But our conflict is with the radicals alone."
Among the first conservative groups gunning for the ground zero mosque was the National Republican Trust PAC, whose television ad two broadcast networks refused to air on the grounds that it seemed to tie the organizers of the community center, without evidence, to the planners of the terror attacks.
But it became a hit on YouTube, and combined with the complaints of New York politicians and some conservative bloggers, the project became a national issue.
"Once we brought this issue to the American people, the politicians were falling all over each other to get out in front of it," said Scott Wheeler, the group's executive director.
The GOP's likely presidential candidates drew a spectrum of shades of opposition but not a single one sided with Bloomberg in backing the mosque on the grounds of private property and religious freedom.
"Ground zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts," wrote Palin on July 18, calling on "peaceful Muslims" to "refudiate" it.
"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia," wrote former House Speaker Newt Gingrich a day later.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, though he represents a relatively heavily Muslim state, rebuffed pleas from local Muslim leaders to back off his suggestion that the mosque would "degrade and disrespect" the Trade Center site. A spokesman for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney cited both "the wishes of the families of the deceased and the potential for extremists to use the mosque for global recruiting and propaganda" in opposing it.
But it was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who seemed to fit the issue most clearly into a recognizable political category of culture war.
"Is it just that we can offend Americans and Christians, but not foreigners and Muslims?" he asked.
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41076.html [with comments]
=====
Searching For Bryan Fischer: One Top Social Conservative's Record Of Xenophobia
Bryan Fischer
Jillian Rayfield | August 16, 2010, 8:40AM
Top social conservative Bryan Fischer [(items linked in http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53237307 ] has attracted a lot of notice over the last week for his polarizing comments about Muslims. And while Fischer may be the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association, AFA spokesman Cindy Roberts remains emphatic that his "analysis" of the "issues" is his and his alone. Roberts told TPM that Fischer's writings, many of which are featured on Fischer's AFA website blog "Focal Point [ http://action.afa.net/Blogs/Blog.aspx?blog=2147483746 ]," are "his personal opinion" and "not AFA's position."
But Fischer and the AFA alike, both with ties to mainstream conservative politicians, have a long and colorful history of championing social conservative causes that are often discriminatory, and in some cases, just plain bizarre.
As we've reported, Fischer said last week [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/top_social_conservative_defends_his_no_more_mosque.php ] that he thinks there should be "no more mosques, period" in the U.S. because "every single mosque is a potential terror training center or recruitment center for jihad." He is also convinced that Gov. David Paterson is trying to impose sharia law [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/social_conservative_bryan_fischer_paterson_wants_t.php ] on New York because he offered to help the Cordoba House developers get state land for their Muslim community center if they agreed to relocate from the controversial planned site a few blocks from Ground Zero.
But last week didn't exactly mark Fischer's first day on the anti-Muslim job. Last year, he called [ http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/conservative-christian-group-calls-for-ban-on-muslims-in-military.php ] for a ban on Muslims in the military after Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly [(. . .)] went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood back in November. Fischer said his views were "not Islamophobia," but "Islamo-realism." He then followed up [ http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147493343 ] with a call to "restrict Muslim immigration to U.S." and "repatriate Muslim immigrants to Muslim countries which share their values."
"Should any nation welcome to its shores immigrants who have a solemn, sacred obligation to kill as many of their hosts as possible?" Fischer asked [ http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147493395 ]. "That's a form of suicidal insanity." (h/t RightWingWatch [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/afas-fischer-muslim-citizens-are-traitors-and-must-be-expelled ].)
And Fischer's not a particularly big fan of gays and lesbians either. He's written [ http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147491522 ] that the U.S. should impose "legal sanctions for homosexual behavior," argued [ http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/100807 ] that "a practicing homosexual should not serve in public office," and claimed [ http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/top_social_conservative.php ] that Hitler used gay soldiers because they "basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after."
Fischer's also expressed outrage [ http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201006080006 ] that Indian-Americans win a lot of spelling bees, claiming that the U.S. needs to "stop this outrageous display of ethnic favoritism." He's expressed some glee over a reported trend that more educated women are having fewer children, which he interpreted [ http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/100626 ] this way: "What this means quite simply is that liberals are breeding themselves out of existence."
And, in arguably his strangest position, Fischer wrote that killer whale Tilikum, who killed [ http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-02-24/news/os-sidebar-tilikum-the-whale-20100224_1_seaworld-trainers-killer-whales-orca ] a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando in February, was just a part of [ http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147492239 ] the "ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture." Fischer quoted Exodus to prove his point: "To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, "the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death." Fischer continued: "If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives."
Roberts, the AFA spokesperson, did tell TPM last week that Fischer's blog posts were not official AFA positions, especially regarding the "Ground Zero mosque": "We're not taking a stand on anything about the mosque situation."
But the AFA itself is also known for taking on pet conservative causes that often appeal to the right-wing fringes. The AFA, a non-profit, describes [ http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=31 ] its purpose as follows:
The American Family Association represents and stands for traditional family values and exists to motivate and equip citizens to reform our culture to reflect Biblical truth on which it was founded.
For example, the AFA put out an August 3 press release [ http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497139 ] that encouraged supporters to email the public relations director of Sears because "Sears is currently offering giant posters of total nud**y on its website. Sears knows they are selling smut."
The release links to the posters -- or rather, links to a warning page [ http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497099 ] about the sexual content of the posters, which then links to another warning page [ http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497180 ] about the sexual content of the posters, which then links to the posters [ http://action.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147497177 ] (admittedly NSFW) -- but also describes them for the faint of heart: "These aren't just posters of scantily-clad women. Some of them depict groups of people, lesbians and others engaged in ***ual activities. Very little is left to the imagination."
Other recent AFA boycotts include the Home Depot [ http://action.afa.net/item.aspx?id=2147496231 ] and The Today Show [ http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147496348 ], in both instances because the AFA disagreed with their positions on gay rights.
AFA Action, the public policy arm of the group, focuses more on objectionable non-Christian goings-on in politics. After Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim member of Congress, took his swearing-in photograph [ http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/04/ellison-koran/ ] with his hand on the Koran [the one once owned by Thomas Jefferson], the AFA asked [ http://web.archive.org/web/20070522063621/http://www.afa.net/aa112806_2.asp ]: "What book will America base it's values on, the Bible or the Koran?" In July, 2007, the AFA called it an "abomination" that a Hindu gave the opening prayer at the day's Senate session, since [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071202007.html ] he would be "seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god."
But the AFA is not just another fringe conservative group. It is a mainstay among social conservatives, with close ties to many Republican politicians.
Several Republican lawmakers appeared [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/can-anyone-be-too-radical-todays-gop ] alongside Fischer at a live webcast hosted by the Family Research Council back in March, including Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
And, as ThinkProgress [ http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/20/afa-radio-health/ ] reported, many Republicans often appear on the AFA's talk radio arm. Sens. Sam Brownback (KS) [(items linked in http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39423407 and preceding and following)] and Mike Johanns (NE) are frequent guests.
When TPM asked Roberts about these ties, and about the AFA's co-sponsoring of September's Values Voter Summit [ http://www.valuesvotersummit.org/ ] which features a litany of mainstream Republican politicians, she insisted that the AFA "[doesn't] endorse any party."
But the summit website's list of invited and confirmed speakers tells a slightly different tale. So far, in addition to Fischer himself, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Pence, former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) [(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53074206 ], and Bachmann are confirmed speakers. Others, like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, and Mitch McConnell were invited but are not yet confirmed, and are featured on the website. There are no Democratic elected officials on the list.
© 2010 TPM Media LLC (emphasis in original)
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/sears_spelling_bees_and_sea_creatures_bryan_fischer_and_the_afas_strange_and_lurid_history_of_hate.php [with comments]
=====
Pro-Mosque Mom Who Lost Pregnant Daughter In Trade Center: 9/11 Families 'Not Monolithic'
August 16, 2010
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/pro-mosque-mom-who-lost-pregnant-daughter-in-trade-center-911-families-not-monolithic.php [with comments]
---
Bloomberg: 'Sad Day For America' If Ground Zero Mosque Plan Is Killed
08/16/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/16/bloomberg-sad-day-for-ame_n_683692.html [with comments]
---
also e.g. (items linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13088854 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53397658 and preceding (and any future following) (. . .)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53399073 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
