Never Been Any Reason
My fellow leftoids may rage against FOXNews, but I appreciate the service they provide: putting all the right-wing crazy into one predictable package. Really, I don’t need Media Matters to cherry-pick the offensive and stupid, when all I have to do is look for the FOXNews byline on my Google News reader, and I know the goods will be there.
For instance, consider the inevitable “draws fire” article on Republican responses to President Obama’s support for the construction of a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero. It’s got Peter King, that reliable voice of downstate NY dipshits:
“While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much,” he said. “The right and moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from ground zero. Unfortunately, the president caved into political correctness.”
Note that it is NOT “political correctness” to defer to the knee-jerk sensibilities of people who confuse a major global religion with the violence committed by a fringe terrorist sect. Forget the Constitution or simple fairness, let the fears and grievances of a handful of victim’s families hold sway. In that light, I refer you to Matt Bors’ excellent cartoon on the subject.
But wait, there’s more! While the rest of the world would rather cram broken glass in their ears than hear what Rick Santorum has to say on any subject whatsoever, FOXNews knows their audience.
Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told Fox News that Obama seems to misunderstand that Islam is not just a religion, but also a political doctrine. He also said the mosque is being run by a man who accused the U.S. of being an accomplice in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Santorum compared the ground zero mosque to a minister who wants to builds a church near the location where the Rev. Martin Luther King was killed but preaches racial separation and the notion that King brought his death upon himself.
Martin Luther King — such handy rhetorical cover for right wing racism. Ironic, too, given that the good doctor would most likely support the construction of Cordoba House. Ah, but what about that nasty imam whom The Santorum calls out for victim-blaming? That would be Feisal Abdul Rauf, a respected Muslim cleric who has served the diplomatic missions of both Obama and Bush administrations. Insert hypocrisy here:
Oddly, Republicans didn’t complain when the Bush/Cheney State Department partnered with “this radical” to help with our diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. This isn’t complicated — if Bush considered Feisal Abdul Rauf a valuable American voice and representative, there’s no reason for the GOP to freak out now.
Reasons. Don’t make me laugh.
BTW, the “victim blaming” in question — the rhetorical arrow that King and Santorum fire off with all the precision of a drunk aiming for the urinal (coating the floor and walls in a perfect circle, the center target perfectly dry) — derives from an interview imam Rauf gave to the late Ed Bradley many years ago.
Bradley: And throughout the Muslim world, there is also strong opposition to America’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East because of its support of Israel and economic sanctions against Iraq.
Faisal: It is a reaction against the US government politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights, and where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries.
Bradley: Are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?
Faisal: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but united states policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.
Bradley: You say that we’re an accessory? How?
Faisal: Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.
Make of that what you will — everyone else is!
How dare he say that Osama Bin Laden was made in the USA. Sure Osama received his funding and training in support of his radical Islamic views by the USA so he’d be a thorn in Russia’s side only to then use that training against us, but that occurred while he was in a different country. So the location of his making was definitely not in the USA!! Check and mate!
True enough. More like “outsourced by the USA.”