Political class sets giant double standard over threats of Quran burning

The preacher over in Dover has agreed to cancel the Quran bonfire. He announced his decision Thursday. The preacher was under the impression that the imam would move the Ground Zero mosque. “He has agreed to move it,” the preacher said of the globetrotting (at US taxpayer expense) imam.

Not so fast, Preacher.

Thursday evening ABC News announced Imam Feisal Abdel Rauf said, “There is no deal.”

During an interview with CNN on Wednesday the imam sounded oddly threatening.  CNN described the imam’s position: “America's national security depends on how it handles the controversy.”

At this point it is tempting to ask whether former vice-president Dick Cheney turned every single light bulb off in every single political class head when he left office.

"The whole national security thing: that's a veiled threat," said Andy Sullivan during an interview with Anderson Cooper. Sullivan, who writes the blog Blue Collar Corner, called it “a turf war.” Give the man an award for being the only individual in the Northeast who is able to think coherently.

I wrote in an earlier column that I hoped the preacher would not burn the Qurans, out of respect for the faith of others.

But the mosque issue remains and most Americans believe it is an insult similar in scope to what the pastor threatened to do.

The political class often is incapable of projecting effect once a cause has been set in motion.

Say the mosque goes up—it’s a tall building. There’s a view of the area where fanatic Islamists flew planes into buildings and killed thousands of innocent people. When there is a major occasion, there will be lines of faithful heading to that mosque. There will be numerous photos. Those photos will be shown in rabid little villages where, to paraphrase President Barack Obama, the people are clinging to God and guns and quite possibly swords useful in decapitation.

Those photos will be the best tool for recruiting ever—in the eyes of fundamentalists, the imam will have brought America to its knees by erecting a mosque overlooking the very spot where minions of Osama bin Laden murdered savagely in the name of their deity.

And amid all the debate, hype and punditry, not a single person with a bully pulpit including our president has taken the time to do what was needed. Islam may value the holy book and we may respect it, but in America, the US Constitution should not be relegated to second place for any religion. That message, as I said in an earlier column, should have been included in every single public statement about the mosque and the potential book burning.

And our leaders, if they had any sense of justice for our country whatsoever, should have the backbone to tell the world that here, no single faith rules. Those same leaders and their political class groupies should also have told Muslims we respect your holy book and we have raised our voices in collective criticism over what the preacher in Dover planned to do.

But the least those leaders and elitists could have done is to respect the anger and disagreement Americans have expressed over a mosque planned for what we all know is a purely political reason. They can acknowledge the imam’s right to build the mosque.

But they can also do the job we pay them for and tell the imam that under our breath, most of us are cursing the very idea of a mosque on ground we consider sacred. That may sound convoluted to the political class. But frankly, who cares? If it had been left to the type of political class who rules us today, America would never have been born.

The preacher yielded out of respect. The imam should now do the same. And by the way, the taxpayer should cease funding the imam.

And our president might turn an eye to the East and remember the words Politico said he spoke about Americans to the fat cats in San Francisco he hoped would cough up dough at a fundraiser—“And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them…”

If that standard doubled up even a tiny bit more, it would break in two. (Commentary by Kay B. Day/Sept. 9, 2010)

Update on Friday, September 10, 2010 at 11:27PM by Kay B. Day, Editor

Update from the Associated Press on demonstrations scheduled for Saturday, and the Quran burning cancellation (at least for now):

For Jones, pastor of a 50-member Pentecostal church in Florida, it was to be a day to burn the Quran. He backed off that threat after drawing angry protests across the Muslim world, a call from the secretary of defense and impassioned pleas to call it off from religious and political leaders and his own daughter.

"There will be no Quran burning tomorrow," Jones' 29-year old son, Luke Jones, told reporters outside his father's Gainesville church Friday. He added that he could not predict what might happen in the future.

Comments

[Dirty Hippie]

The pastor agreed to cancel the burning after Robert Gates called.