Obama is in effect saying that you can build a triumphal mosque marking Islam’s superiority and victory — which is how the Ground Zero mosque will be viewed in the Islamic world — and you can lie about your funding, and lie about your commitment to interreligious dialogue and harmony, and refuse to denounce jihad terrorists, and all that is just fine with him.
“Obama’s Support for Ground Zero Mosque Draws Fire,” from FoxNews.com, August 14:
President Obama is under fire after jumping into the middle of a cultural clash Friday night in favor of building a mosque near ground zero, a stance that has elevated the contentious issue to the presidential level ahead of a difficult election season for Democrats.
Some victims’ advocates and Republicans have strongly condemned Obama’s support for the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic community center two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see,” said Debra Burlingame, a spokeswoman for some Sept. 11 victims’ families and the sister of one of the pilots killed in the attacks.
Building the mosque at ground zero, she said, “is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah.”
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y said the president is “wrong.”
“It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero,” he said in a written statement.
“While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much,” he said. “The right and moral thing for President Obama to have done was to urge Muslim leaders to respect the families of those who died and move their mosque away from ground zero. Unfortunately, the president caved into political correctness.” […]
While his pronouncement concerning the mosque might find favor in the Muslim world, Obama’s stance runs counter to the opinions of the majority of Americans, according to polls. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released this week found that nearly 70 percent of Americans opposed the mosque plan while just 29 percent approved. A number of Democratic politicians have shied away from the controversy. […]
Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told Fox News that Obama seems to misunderstand that Islam is not just a religion, but also a political doctrine. He also said the mosque is being run by a man who accused the U.S. of being an accomplice in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Santorum compared the ground zero mosque to a minister who wants to builds a church near the location where the Rev. Martin Luther King was killed but preaches racial separation and the notion that King brought his death upon himself.
“I don’t think Barack Obama would say, ‘Well we have religious tolerance, we’re going to allow them to do that,'” he said. “That is the wrong way to look at this. This is not whether it’s a legal right to do it. People have legal rights to do a lot of things in this country.”
“We have the will of the American public,” he said, noting the polls show most oppose the mosque. The imam is “ignoring the will of the American public, as by the way, Barack Obama is by siding with him.”