Earlier today, Mayor Bloomberg responded to my comments about the planned mosque at Ground Zero by suggesting that a decision not to allow the building of a mosque at that sacred place would somehow violate American principles of tolerance and openness. No one is disputing that America stands for – and should stand for – religious tolerance. It is a foundation of our republic. This is not an issue of religious tolerance but of common moral sense. To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks. Just days after 9/11, the spiritual leader of the organization that wants to build the mosque, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, suggested that blame be placed on the innocents when he stated that the “United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” and that “in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” Rauf refuses to recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of our ally, Israel, and refuses to provide information about the sources of funding for the $100 million mosque. Rauf also plays a key role in a group behind the flotilla designed to provoke Israel in its justifiable blockade of Gaza. These are just a few of the points Americans are realizing as New York considers the proposed mosque just a stone’s throw away from 9/11’s sacred ground. I agree with the sister of one of the 9/11 victims (and a New York resident) who said: “This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists. I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened.” Many Americans, myself included, feel it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground. This is nothing close to “religious intolerance,” it’s just common decency.
– Sarah Palin
9/11
Fort Hood’s 9/11
Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn’t killed on the spot.
Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming “harassment” drove him temporarily insane. There’ll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn’t dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.
Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he’ll have the last laugh.
But Hasan isn’t the sole guilty party. The US Army’s unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood.
Given the myriad warning signs, it’s appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.
Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would’ve been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.
read the rest here… Fort Hood’s 9/11.
Video: Escaped The Plantation, Voting McCain
Perhaps the best speech given during this entire campaign cycle.
The O-Team
More genius by ZO. See more great clips here
The Diligent: Preserving Ground Zero
Two of the 9/11 victim family members fighting the liberal bureaucracy of NYC for the 9/11 Memorial were interviewed by a NY Times reporter (the reporter clearly being careful in this case because of the personal and touchy subject).
An interesting moment to me was when one of the women representing the families commented on thinking that the NYC government would do the right thing, regardless of politics and other problems…
“At that time I didn’t think it would take so long to do the right thing… they’re going to understand the importance of this space, and the lives that were lost in this space, and the sacred and hallowedness of it. How can you not?”
The reporter pauses and thinks carefully how to frame the question she knows the liberals want to ask…
“There are people who say, [pause] that’s a little too intense. What drives you like that? You know, who do you represent? How do you answer the people who ask those kinds of questions?”
Must be people like the reporter, for her to have even considered asking that question. A little too intense? Yeah, let’s bury our liberal heads in the sand and forget 9/11 happened? Maybe the mean Muslims will hate us less if we just forget about 3000 dead and make it go away. The woman either didn’t realize the reporter was questioning her motivations, or decided to brush it off. She answered, essentially, a different question and moved on. But this is the classic subtle and careful craftiness of the liberals in the press. They steer and craft and mold a interview or story into something that seems innocuous but even slightly forwards their agenda, even subconsciously. The right in the press do it too, but their numbers are far fewer and they call themselves commentators much more consistently.
What we should all understand as we watch TV, or read newpapers (while they last), is that humans write the stories. And as long as humans write the stories, there will be spin. Period. Once you establish that, you have to figure out who’s spinning for whom and for which worldview, to even know what to make of the content. It’s too much work to have to second guess reporters all of the time.
I wish it was a by-line requirement, to establish your personal slant and angle of it. As much as I would like to deliver a neutral report in the interests of impartial journalism, if I were a reporter I know that the nature and subject matter of my reporting would be flavored with my worldview. It’s unavoidable. I’ve never heard a neutral report. Not once. It’s not hard to read and watch news and see the slant, left or right, clear as day. It’s human to slant. It means you care about it. It means you aren’t a machine. The problem is when reporters have a slant and try to hide it. They realize that an obvious slant will weaken the desired perception of impartiality, so they practice the subtle lean — an almost inperceptable tilt that seems reasonable and harmless but in the end leaves readers/viewers with the opposite worldview feeling strangely icky.
I believe some of the younger and more naive reporters actually believe that they can change the world by forwarding the liberal agenda through the press. There is a lot of preaching by liberal professors and others on college campuses about “making a difference” by controlling the language and thoughts of the masses. The best ways to do this is by choosing politics or “journalism” as a focus and career path. Unfortunately for this country, the conservative students, coping with little or none of the “I’m a misfit and I want to be heard” mentality, instead choose to go into private business and build the country. This is a blessing for the country, but also the curse that brought about the liberal dominance in the media now.
Anyway…
Obama Would Remove DOMA
Read the article. Scary implications, and consequences far reaching, should the country fall sucker to the empty suit named “change”. One of the scarier passages…
The absence of a federal law could mean that the more than 40 states that have bans — either constitutional or in statute — on same-sex marriage would be required to recognize a homosexual marriage license from another state as a legally binding contract.
And…
“A marriage is valid where it’s performed and valid everywhere, with one exception, if it violates public policy,” said said Lynn Wardle, a law professor at Brigham Young University. “As a political move, this would inevitably mean gay marriage in most states. It’s a step in nationalizing gay marriage” she said.
Ongoing Port Authority Incompetence, Are We Surprised?
This article on the ongoing fiasco at Ground Zero reminds me of one of my favorite lines in Deadwood… “I am a sinner who does not expect forgiveness… but I am not a government official!”
The rebuilding of the World Trade Center, destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, won’t be completed until the middle of the next decade, and will cost as much as $3 billion more than planned, according to people familiar with the matter.