Just Call 'em Bigots

Charles Krauthammer skewers the intellectual sloth of those who criticize the opponents of what has come to be known as the GZ Mosque (Ground Zero Mosque) in an essay for the Washington Post. The critics are quick to impute the worst motives to the mosque's opponents - bigotry, political opportunism - but, as Krauthammer writes, they rarely come to grips with the opponents' arguments. Perhaps that's because they have no actual argument of their own.

Anyway, here's his intro:

It's hard to be an Obama sycophant these days. Your hero delivers a Ramadan speech roundly supporting the building of a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York. Your heart swells and you're moved to declare this President Obama's finest hour, his act of greatest courage. Alas, the next day, at a remove of 800 miles, Obama explains that he was only talking about the legality of the thing and not the wisdom -- upon which he does not make, and will not make, any judgment.

You're left looking like a fool because now Obama has said exactly nothing: No one disputes the right to build; the whole debate is about the propriety, the decency of doing so.

It takes no courage whatsoever to bask in the applause of a Muslim audience as you promise to stand stoutly for their right to build a mosque, giving the unmistakable impression that you endorse the idea. What takes courage is to then respectfully ask that audience to reflect upon the wisdom of the project and to consider whether the imam's alleged goal of interfaith understanding might not be better achieved by accepting the New York governor's offer to help find another site.

Where the president flagged, however, the liberal intelligentsia stepped in with gusto, penning dozens of pro-mosque articles characterized by a frenzied unanimity, little resort to argument and a singular difficulty dealing with analogies.

In the balance of the piece Krauthammer does a fine job of exposing the superficiality of efforts such as those by Richard Cohen and Michael Kinsley to demean and discredit those who prefer that the mosque be built elsewhere than at the site of perhaps the greatest crime in U.S. history, a crime perpetrated in the name of Allah and Islam. Give it a read.

Lying for a Living

Isn't this interesting. Jim Wallis recently responded to a blog post by Marvin Olasky by stating that Olasky, like Glenn Beck, lies for a living. The immediate provocation that led to Wallis' intemperate remark was Olasky's claim that Wallis' magazine, Sojourners, has accepted money from left-wing financier George Soros' organization Open Society Institute. Wallis, perhaps forgetting for the moment that he's supposed to be a Christian, reacted with a twofer, calling both Olasky and Beck (who, as far as I know, had nothing to do with this) liars. Turns out, though, that Olasky was correct and Wallis was ..... mistaken.

Details of Mr. Wallis' faux pas can be found at No Left Turns which concludes their post with this:

The Open Society Institute's tax returns show that it made three grants to Sojourners between 2004 and 2007, for a total of $325,000. Either Sojourners is drowning in money or Wallis is succumbing to dementia, because he says, fessing up, that the "OSI made up the tiniest fraction of Sojourners' funding during that decade--so small that I hadn't remembered them." The other possibility, that Wallis lies - not for a living, exactly - but when it appears convenient for the greater good of articulating the biblical call to social justice, is too far-fetched and cruel to entertain for as long as it takes to pose the thought.

Wallis owes Olasky an apology, but, if one has been tendered, I haven't heard anything about it. He also needs to go to confession, even if he's not Catholic.

Solving Problems

This is making the rounds on the internet:

Everyone concentrates on the problems we're having in Our Country lately: Illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, alligators attacking people in Florida . . . . Not me -- I concentrate on solutions for the problems -- it's a win-win situation: Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border. Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levees. Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border.

Any other problems you would like for me to solve today? Think about this: 1. Cows 2. The Constitution 3. The Ten Commandments

COWS

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington? And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.

THE CONSTITUTION

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq ...why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore.

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this -- you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians, it creates a hostile work environment.

Pretty good.