There was great rejoicing on the port side of the blogosphere this weekend after Barack Obama took the “brave step” of announcing “his support for the Ground Zero mosque.” (There was also much rejoicing on the starboard side as well, as it “proved” the Right’s contention that Obama is a double-secret Islamic Muslim Moslem Mohammedan out to convert every American into Islamic Muslim Moslems.) Even stern critics of many aspects of the Obama regime declared that here, at last, the pusillanimous progressive prez had taken a worthy stand, and should be praised.
[I confess that I have never understood this latter stance, especially when it comes from those who continually lay out the high crimes and atrocities of the current administration in devastating detail. Why should we make a point of praising leaders whom we know are engaged in criminal, immoral and unconstitutional actions? As I’ve noted here many times before, every government in the history of the world has done “good” things, in some areas, for some people, or even many people — even the worst regimes of the last century. They built roads, established social programs, dug sewers, built hospitals, schools, parks, museums, brought electricity to rural regions, lifted millions out of poverty and illiteracy, and so on and so forth. Their leaders often made speeches about their abiding belief in freedom and peace and a decent life for all; Stalin’s constitution, for example, promised a virtual paradise of democracy, tolerance, equality and ease. Indeed, you can find “good” deeds being done by all kinds of criminal groups: Al Capone’s gang helped many of the poor and sick in their neighborhoods — in fact, it was the Chicago mob that first forced milk producers to date-stamp their products, to protect consumers from buying old milk which had been sold as fresh. But no one feels compelled to be “fair” by noting their good deeds along with the many murders, atrocities and acts of terrors they committed. Why then should we praise a president who is directing — and expanding — the murderous operations of rampaging, liberty-gutting war machine?]
In any case, soon — in less than 24 hours, in fact — it was walkbacks all around, as the Pusillanimous One issued a statement that diluted his original declaration to the point of anodyne meaninglessness. No longer a bold stand against the truly sickening racism — and deliberate deceit — of the manufactured “controversy,” Obama’s “stance” was reduced to beltway boilerplate about our exalted American principles … while specifically (and cravenly) denying that these principles could be or should be applied to this, or any, particular case.
As you might imagine, Arthur Silber has been on this case like the proverbial duck on the folkloric June bug. I was going to write on this topic, but he has already said most everything that I was going to say — and much more besides. So let me then direct you immediately to his take on the subject, which opens with the most salient point — that our “bold, brave” president is, by any measure (including those most solemnly encoded in the laws of the United States of America), a wanton war criminal. He also adds many other insights along the way — such as the entirely ignored fact that the “Ground Zero Mosque” is, strictly speaking, not a mosque at all, and not at Ground Zero, while also scoring the deep, widespread and, dare we say it, popular racism at the core of this whole issue (which he also deals with in this follow-up piece). Hie thee there immediately, and read.
*Broken link fixed. My apologies.