Florida gubernatorial candidate decries N.Y. mosque as president endorses it

The World Trade Center building site blocks from a planned mosque. (Photo by Kay B. Day)

[Ed note: See updates and continuing coverage below. Politico has issued an announcement saying the president emphasized he was "not endorsing the project, just the organizers' right to build it." ]

Who would have thought anyone would want to build a mosque blocks from Ground Zero? Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott (R) issued a statement decrying the location. President Barack Obama took the opportunity to support it during his second White House dinner celebrating the Muslim observation of Ramadan.

The developers of the mosque know that the government’s role in religion is limited by our constitution. And if the man behind the mosque, Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, is smart enough for two presidents to send him, probably on our taxpayer dollars, to Muslim countries to allegedly promote peace, it stands to reason the imam knows exactly what he’s doing by erecting a symbol of the religion terrorists hijacked to slaughter innocents.

Curiously absent from this situation is one fact. For starters, who owns the property? It seems to me that public advocacy could be directed to engage the property owner in dialog. Of course that same owner stands to make a lot of money, so he/she/they might not entertain any action that nixes a very profitable deal. Why this has not occurred to government-allied media is typical of contemporary reportage.

Despicably absent are any concerns expressed by Democrats in congress. Remember Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) who threw a hissy fit on the floor of Congress about the GOP stopping a well-intentioned but unfunded bill for 9/11 responders? He screeched. Nary a word, however, about the mosque, leading me to once again reflect how appropriate Weiner’s last name is in light of his behavior. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) chickened out as well. Mum's the word on this if you're a Democrat, apparently.

Newt Gingrich, a probable ’12 contender for the GOP nomination for president, wrote a starkly honest opinion of the mosque: “Building this structure on the edge of the battlefield created by radical Islamists is not a celebration of religious pluralism and mutual tolerance; it is a political statement of shocking arrogance and hypocrisy.”

Florida gubernatorial candidate Scott issued a rather shocking statement, in the scheme of things. Scott said, "All Americans of course believe in absolute freedom of religion. But this is outrageous. President Obama would rather stand with the ACLU and the liberal establishment than with the 9/11 victims and their families. It is shameful and the act of a cowardly politician, not that of the leader of the United States of America...Building a victory monument to Mohammed Atta and the other 18 terrorists and their despicable act on 9/11 is unthinkable to me.”

Scott said if he were governor and the mosque were to be built in Florida, he “would do anything and everything in my power to prevent the project from moving forward.”

And with a nod to the same constitutional limitations that prohibit government from interfering in religion, Scott closed his statement with the remarks I find shocking: "It may not be politically correct to say that, but it is the truth and someone has to speak it."

That last is an unusually honest statement from a candidate. But it is a statement many Americans agree with.

I recall one N.Y. official saying the thousands who died at Ground Zero died defending the Constitution. He is incorrect. They died doing everyday things—going to work, having a meal, running errands. The people who died were civilians, not a military fighting force. Not a single one of them woke up that morning thinking he or she would have to defend anything.

The attack on September 11 was the result of inept foreign policy in the hands of a Democrat president who, despite an open declaration of war by Osama bin Laden on national TV, chose to mollify rather than defend.

Star Parker offers perspective in a column at Big Government: “As Johns Hopkins University Middle East Scholar Fouad Ajami pointed out in a Wall Street Journal column, President Obama’s outreach program has accomplished only diminished respect for us in the Islamic world.  Antipathy continues to run high and unchanged and it’s not because there something wrong with us.  It’s because, as Ajami points out, it’s a convenient ‘scapegoat’ for nations and rulers that refuse to address their own real problems.”

If our foreign and domestic policies are so strong, why did leaders like Obama refrain from a simple discussion of the inevitable politics surrounding this mosque?

The only means of obstructing the building of the mosque is in the hands of the people, not the government. Speaking out about the building of it and using whatever legal, peaceful means are available are appropriate responses.

The most troubling development in this controversy is Obama’s outright support for this mosque. While the president can’t legally intervene in this matter, we must admit to ourselves he has intervened in other matters that defy the constitution. The mandate in the healthcare bill is one example. Aligning with the position of a foreign country to sue the state of Arizona is another example.

That our president did  not at least speak passionately about the issue of American loss is more than troubling, it is the mark of a man who does not appreciate what was lost, not just in lives but in liberty and treasure, on a sunny September day ten years ago. Obama’s acceptance of a mosque blocks from Ground Zero rightfully acknowledges the limits of the constitution, but our president should have limited his remarks to that alone. His endorsement was not only inappropriate, it was unnecessary.

Scott’s approach is one that resonates. Building this mosque—“a victory monument to Mohammed Atta” and the other terrorists—is “unthinkable.”

Meanwhile, I'd still like to know who owns the property.

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/August 14, 2010)

Update on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 2:37PM by Kay B. Day, Editor

2:37 p.m.: Politico article shows cluelessness of corporate (as opposed to indie) media. Does this publication actually believe the proposed mosque is just now entering the national debate? Fact is, everyday Americans have been talking about the mosque near Ground Zero for weeks. There is an enormous divide between most media and the American people.

3:17 p.m.: The New York Times gives President Obama a chance to clarify his position on the mosque. Once again, the president misses the boat. Note comments of an engineering intern quoted in NYT who said, "Mohamed Haroun, an intern at a mechanical engineering firm, said, 'What he should have said was: ‘This is a community decision. Constitutionally, they have the right to do it, but it’s a community decision and we should see what the local community wants to do.’ ”

That is not the perspective most Americans have on an attack that not only cost lives. The cost of 9/11 to Americans will outlive most of us. Liberties have been restricted, enormous fraud in lending occurred, the losses of property on that day and the impact on insurance affected every property owner in the nation.

5:01 p.m.: President Obama tells Politico he wasn't "endorsing" the mosque. He was just supporting the organizers' right to build it.

8:21 p.m.: US Senate Candidate Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) issued a statement about one of his opponents Gov. Charlie Crist (I) agreeing with Obama's position on the mosque:

"We are a nation founded on strong principles of religious freedom. However, we cannot be blind to the pain 9/11 caused our nation and the families of the victims. It is divisive and disrespectful to build a mosque next to the site where 3,000 innocent people were murdered at the hands of Islamic extremism. I strongly disagree with President Obama and Charlie Crist."