Last week John McCain announced that he too was opposed to the Community Center and Mosque to be built a couple blocks from Ground Zero. To his credit, unlike many others, he noted that as a Senator from Arizona, it wasn’t entirely clear what relevance his opinion should have. But that development did point up a little-watched trend in what we might call, for lack of a better phrase, the anti-Ground Zero Mosque jihad. Conservatives across the USA are increasingly aggrieved not only at the sponsors of the Muslim community center project, but at New Yorkers themselves. I mean, how can they not be when the primary shrine of our national racial-religious holy war is in the custody of America-hating, terrorist coddling squishes who just don’t ‘get’ 9/11?
I first noticed this back when Sarah Palin birthed the word “refudiate” into American English. Remember, there was a succession of tweets, corrections and revisions following the first. The first called for “peaceful Muslims” to “refudiate” the project. And of course that makes perfect sense in order to distinguish the mainstream of insane jihadist Muslims from the “peaceful” ones who weren’t involved in 9/11 and might be open to Palin’s message.
The follow-up correction though was the one that caught my eye. It was addressed to “peaceful New Yorkers.” Now, who else is there exactly? The jihadist New Yorkers? The anti-American New Yorkers from the “peaceful” ones who might see the light? Apparently we’re just one step removed from the Jihadist Muslims.
Then I saw this column by Star Parker this morning lamenting that Ground Zero is stranded in … well, New York, with all those liberals who don’t care about 9/11.
The mosque project at Ground Zero should not go forward and let’s hope that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is behind the $100 million effort, gets the message and backs off.
But given what he is hearing from the liberals in New York, including the city’s mayor, the congressman in whose district Ground Zero sits and The New York Times [NYT], it’s hard to be optimistic he’ll change his mind.
It would be wrong to assume that New Yorkers by and large are in favor of this project. The most recent polling I saw suggested that a bare majority of New Yorkers are opposed to the project while a similar majority of Manhattanites are in favor of it — which isn’t terribly surprising given the political make up of the different boroughs.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. Back in 2004 you’ll remember the Republican National Convention was held in New York City. And one of the more entertaining memories was hearing convention goers at the local drinking establishments shaking their heads about how the locals didn’t ‘get’ 9/11. It’s part of a long history of New Yorkers hogging all the terrorism from the people who get it.
