In June, 2005, New York City radio station WCBS-FM switched from an "oldies" format to the more eclectic "Jack FM" format. Since at that point, WCBS was the only "oldies" station in New York City, thousands of Gotham residents were upset by the change in format; among them Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to an article in the New York Post, Hizzoner the Mayor was so furious over WCBS' format change that he expressed his displeasure in terms that can't be repeated in a family-oriented forum such as Red County.
Now, let's fast-forward five years. Mayor Bloomberg doesn't seem nearly as upset by the prospect of Moslems building an imposing "mega-mosque" literally a stone's throw from Ground Zero, where more than 3,000 Americans were murdered in cold blood by Islamic jihadists who rammed jet airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.
Let me see if I have this straight. Mayor Bloomberg has no problem with a St. Peter's Basilica-sized mosque near the spot where 3,000 innocent people lost their lives in the name of Islam. But change the format of his favorite radio station, and the Mayor goes ballistic.
So much for priorities.
And then, there's Barack Obama.
Last Friday night, at a White House dinner celebrating the Islamic festival of Ramadan (why hasn't our all-inclusive and all-tolerant ostensible President given the Feast of the Assumption, which Roman Catholics worldwide celebrated this past Sunday, equal time?), Obama asserted that the Moslems have the right to build their mega-mosque wherever they want--including Ground Zero, if that's their site of choice.
Obama's apparent endorsement of the proposed Ground Zero mega-mosque circulated all over the blogosphere within a matter of minutes. The nationwide reaction to it was so overwhelmingly negative that the following day, Obama was forced to retreat--as far as his arrogance permitted--from the remarks he made Friday evening. Obama dissembled that at the time, he was commenting only on the "legality" of building a mosque at Ground Zero. He added not only that he wasn't commenting on the "wisdom" of building a mosque at that location, but also that he wouldn't comment on it.
What further evidence do we need that Barack Obama lacks the competence or even the temperament to be a true leader?
Barack Obama is a man who has never had to take responsibility for anything in his entire life. He has never managed anything as ambitious as a paper route or even a lemonade stand. During his tenure in the Illinois Legislature, Obama voted "present" on most of the bills that were brought before him. (That way, no one could pin him down on any issue.) For most of his tenure in the US Senate, Obama was too busy running for the Presidency to take a stand on any issue--with the exception of the surge in Iraq, which he opposed, and of which, in a quintessential irony, he is now reaping the benefits.
Now that he's in the White House, Obama continues to evade responsibility. Whenever his programs fail to deliver on the promises he made--as all of his programs to date have--Obama invariably explains away his failures by saying that "That idiot George W. Bush left me such an unbelievably big mess; you can't expect me to clean it up in just eighteen months."
President Ronald W. Reagan could have made the exact same assertions about Jimmy Carter in 1982, before the full force of President Reagan's wise economic policies could be felt. And such an argument would have been much closer to the truth than Obama's constant, immature and increasingly tiresome "blame Bush" act. But to his great credit, President Reagan, the statesman's statesman, never did that. More to the point, the leftist-dominated--then as now--news media would never have let President Reagan get away with such an assertion if he had made it.
Whenever any of his appointees are caught--as many of them have been--in improper or illegal activities, Obama characteristically disavows any knowledge of or responsibility for the actions of his subordinates.
Obama simply doesn't understand the concept of delegating responsibility. He doesn't understand that when you're a person in a position of authority, and when in that capacity, you appoint people to act on your behalf, by extension, you become responsible for whatever those appointees say and do.
This is what happens when a leftist ideologue who has absolutely no executive experience of any kind accedes to the highest office in the Free World.
Returning to the Ground Zero mega-mosque proposal, while Barack Obama clearly lacks sufficient moral courage to "comment on the wisdom" of this project, I most certainly don't. While the construction of a mosque at the site of the Islamic jihadists' most infamous and notorious crime against humanity is definitely legal, it is just as definitely improper, and may be just as definitely imprudent.
This venture is improper for the simple reason that it offends the sensibilities of those who lost friends and relatives in the 9-11 attacks. Simply stated, building an outsized mosque at Ground Zero would be tantamount to dancing on the victims' graves. It bears mentioning that the history of Islam is replete with examples of this type of gloating. After overrunning Spain, the Moors desecrated a Roman Catholic cathedral and converted it into a mosque. The building was subsequently reclaimed by Spanish Roman Catholics when they regained control of their country and has since been restored to its rightful former use.
Saint Sophia's Church in Istanbul was once the Byzantine Catholic--and later Eastern Orthodox--cathedral of Constantinople. When the Moslem Ottoman Turks overran Asia Minor and sacked Constantinople, they desecrated St. Sophia's, renaming it "Hagia Sophia" and converting it into a mosque. St. Sophia's is now a museum.
The Ground Zero mosque proposition is imprudent because if in fact it is built, it will very likely become a target of constant and often severe vandalism. The emotional--and overwhelmingly negative--response to the mere suggestion of a mosque at Ground Zero should serve as a serious warning to advocates of the project. If built, the Ground Zero mega-mosque will be repeatedly hit by vandalism ranging from juvenile harassment--smashed windows, anti-Moslem graffiti (possibly written in pig blood) on the walls and even actual dead pigs at the entrances--to potentially deadly destruction like firebombings and arson.
Fox News Channel commentators Bill O'Reilly and Bill Kristol have both opined that the Ground Zero mega-mosque will never actually be built for lack of Tri-State area construction workers who would be willing to work on such a project. I would add that the unwillingness of insurance companies to underwrite property coverage for a provocative mega-mosque at Ground Zero that is likely to become a significant vandalism and arson magnet further reduces the likelihood that the mosque will ever actually be built.
Of course, there's always Lloyd's of London.
Comments
Politics
Desperation and Hypocrisy are the father and mother of Political Projection and “people who are hungry and out of a job, are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” The Hammer and the Hair are out. Foreclosures up, employment down. Murdock using his Census, has enriched the RIGHT Govs. It’s the American way, so STOP ignoring that we’re being media manipulated in lockstep celebration of backward thinking. LOOK around you. Why would the Board Room boys hire you, when not hiring you keeps our economy and us needy, and keeps Obama in his place. LISTEN to yourself and turn off corporate owned media, that programs us, into a programmed non-reasoning, out of control mass of reactionaries. “The tie that binds” us, is our freedom to choose how we respond and think: seeing all things connected; one village of one human race, mind and body politic; each an essential part of the other, or else, streets following with the red tea of mob mentality.
Oh, “Come On,” Eric Cantor, why is it that those who scream the loudest about God & Country are the first to dismantle our very foundation: The Bill of Rights – most notably the First Amendment with its five different exceptional promises: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Expression, and Freedom of Assembly. Even Harry Reid, who is running against a most un-American candidate is free to cowardly make a fool of himself, just to win.
To condemn the building of a community center owned and operated by people who are Americans but maybe look, dress and sound like those who attacked all Americans on Sept 11, 2001, is like saying anyone who knows a communist, is one. Oops, we allowed McCarthyism to manipulate us into that bit of self-destruction didn’t we? Well, restricting the freedom of movement of a race of people in our society, just because they resemble an enemy, is like putting them in a concentration camp, because we can’t find the real culprits. Oops, you’re right, been there done that, with Japanese Americans during WWII. Well, refusing a building permit for people whose beliefs differ from our own, is as childish as renaming our food – Damn, “Freedom Fries!” Again, the least common denominator mindset won the day. We poured more than French wine in the gutter in 2003. We poured our desire to think rationally, and over 4,000 Americans are dead and 32,000 wounded, because of it. We are allowing Bankstas and other corporations to convince us to kill our national selves, while we argue over coffee or tea. Why are we allowing teams of opportunists like Delay/Gingrich, Jan Brewer/John Boehner, Peter King/Dick Armey, Rand Paul/Sharron Angle, Palin/Bachman, and Laura Ingraham/Ann Coulter, to twist our way of thinking to their advantage, even at the risk of destroying the promise of our exceptional foundations: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and The Gettysburg Address? These are not just pieces of paper whose words are to be discarded and forgotten when it’s inconvenient or even devastatingly painful to live by them. Either we are these words, or we’re RIGHT.
I didn’t lose a parent, spouse or sibling on 9/11, but having lived in NYC for decades, on that horrible evening, I was emailing and calling, through tears of fear, pain and pride as I watched my fellow New Yorkers by the thousands, walking across the borough bridges, because that’s what New Yorkers do. They carry on, undefeated, just as Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Washington and countless shoeless farmers, clerks, school teachers and preachers did in 1776-8; and in this courageous tradition, so did hundreds of firemen, police and laymen in New York, DC and Pennsylvania on 9/11. They reached out to help each other stand up again and carry on with our exceptional definitions, “The Home of the Brave” in “The Land of the Free.” Do you think they were all blond and blue-eyed? Americans of all beliefs, colors and sexual preferences worked to save others, and many died doing so. We are The Dream of humankind, unless we put on our Bush League boots and Dick around with our Bill of Rights. So far, no foreign power has come as close to destroying the foundation of America, as have our Goliath Corporations and their RIGHT Wing media puppets. Like the miners of Harland County Kentucky, Candidate R. Paul, "We the People” are the only protection standing between the promises of our Bill of Rights and the villains on the RIGHT.
IT'S LOCATION, LOCATION LOCATION, STUPID!
Politics
Wasn't the intentional murder of some 3,000 Americans by Islamic fanatics on 9/11 POLITICAL? .
Isn't radical Islam POLITICAL, especially when Sharia law is what they want us to have? SHARIA AND THE ISLAMIC RELIGION ARE TIED TOGETHER. HOW DOES THAT SQUARE WITH OUR SO-CALLED "SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE" CLAUSE THAT IS SUPPOSEDLY IN THE CONSTITUTION? SORT OF FLIES IN THE FACE OF WHAT THE CONSTITUTION REALLY SAYS ABOUT FREEDOM OF RELIGION, DON'T YOU THINK?
Isn't this Imam POLITICAL? READ OR HEARD ANY OF HIS COMMENTS ABOUT 9/11? DID YOU HAPPEN TO HEAR HIS COMMENTS ON CBS' 60 MINUTES ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2001? CBS AND 60 MINUTES ARE HARDLY THE BASITION OF CONSERVATISM.
Just the idea of a mosque being built there is in and of itself POLITICAL. Ever look at the Muslims history? Every place they conquer, what is the first thing they do? Build a mosque as a symbol of their conquest. Or, in the case of Istanbul, Turkey, they commandeered an Eastern Orthodox temple, Hagia Sophia and turned it into a mosque, ridding it of all vestiges of the icons, except the great one on the dome (ceiling). Don't you think the people of lower Manhattan have a right to protest, nay, even demand this mosque not be built two blocks from ground zero? To put a mosque there is akin to claiming victory over the United States. Is that what you want? Even the name of this so-called community center is suspicious, not to mention POLITICAL--the Cordoba Center. Read up on that one, pixie.
Look pixie, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Ingraham, et al. are saying what 76% of Americans are saying. It isn't political, nor is it a "violation of the Constitution" WRT freedom of religion. Everyone agrees on freedom of religion. Muslims can pray in a ravene if they want and nobody would object. It doesn't take the contingent of conservative talking heads to TELL US what to think on this issue; we arrived at that conclusion BEFORE they hit the airwaves with their views on the subject! What WE THE PEOPLE DO DISPUTE is the LOCATION of the proposed mosque--you know, the place where you said you were around on 9/11/01? Put the mosque anywhere else in New York, just don't put it there.
You may SCREAM ABOUT COMMON SENSE BEING AWOL AMONG THE MASSES BECAUSE PEOPLE LISTEN TO CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATORS, BUT I BELIEVE, AS I SAID BEFORE, THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS HAVE HAD THIS SENTIMENT ALL ALONG, AND NEW YORKERS IN PARTICULAR HAVE STRONGER FEELINGS ABOUT THIS BECAUSE THEY WERE ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE ATTACK.
YOUR CUTESY LITTLE DIGS/DOUBLE ENTENDRES AT BUSH AND CHENEY DID WHAT? NOTHING BUT SHOW THAT YOUR ARE A KOOL-AID DRINIKING IDEOLOUGE.
BTW, IF AS YOU SAY, YOU WERE IN LOWER MANHATTAN AND EXPERIENCED THE HORROR ON 9/11, YOU WOULD CERTAINLY REALIZE THAT THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK CITY ARE NOT OVER THIS HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE. SINCE YOU SEEM NOT TO BE A RESIDENT OF THE CITY, IT IS EASY FOR YOU TO DISMISS THE PAIN PEOPLE ARE STILL FEELING TODAY, AND HAVE NO REGARD WHATSOEVER FOR THEM OR THEIR WISHES.
Suspicious
News Corp’s number-two shareholder funded ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ planner
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100820/bs_yblog_upshot/news-corps...
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