A war on Islam would make a war on terrorism impossible

Those words were written by George W. Bush's former speechwriter, Michael Gerson. It says something when we have to look to former Bush people for sanity in the current anti-Muslim hysteria.  I apologize for returning to the same subject again but I find the current level of rhetoric on the 'not really a mosque' near ground zero has reached levels of vile xenophobic rhetoric I have never seen in the 35 years I have lived in America. 

Today we saw Laura Ingraham, the almost Ann Coulter like fellow blond right wing voice do a 180 degree turn in about 8 months.  In December she interviewed Daisy Kahn, the wife an co-founder of the project, Abdul Rauf.  Here's a part of the interview,

INGRAHAM: I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it. [Mayor] Bloomberg is for it. Rabbis are saying they don’t have a problem with it. [...] I like what you’re trying to do and Ms. Khan we appreciate it and come on my radio show some time.

KHAN: Yeah, we need the support of people like you seriously.

Then today on Morning Mix with George Stephanopolous she said,

INGRAHAM: There’s a disconnect, George, between the elites and the way they think about this, and, I think most New Yorkers, and most of the country. I know Michael Bloomberg was out there saying, “Well, our values need to be properly represented to the world, and if this mosque isn’t going to be built, what is that going to say? The terrorists win!” Well, I say the terrorists have won with how this has gone down. 600 feet from where thousands of our fellow Americans were incinerated in the name of political Islam, and we’re supposed to be cheering this?!

Never let it be said that Ingraham would miss an opportunity to jump on the bandwagon. I cannot imagine anyone with the name Daisy being connected to radical Islam in any way.

I hate to say it, considering that I have decried the prevalent Nazi/Hitler comparisons but this reminds me of the demonization of the Jews by Hitler. Not that Muslims would suffer anywhere near the same fate in America and I believe this hysteria will die down soon enough.

Here's Newt Gingrich's opinion, one of the milder ones from opponents of the project.

"It's an assertion of Islamist triumphalism,” part of “an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.” Those who think it’s O.K. are “apologists for radical Islamist hypocrisy”

Nevermind that Imam Abdul Rauf was chosen by the Bush administration to lead his post 9/11 outreach to the Muslim world and nevermind that he has worked closely with the FBI and has received lavish praise from them.

There was a welcome dose of sanity today from two former Bushies. This morning, former Bush advisor Mark McKinnon noted that trying to prevent peaceful Muslims from worshiping near the site of Ground Zero will only serve to enforce “al Qaeda’s message” that the West is at war with Islam.

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson — using Bush-era terminology — reinforced McKinnon’s view. “Those who want a president to assert that any mosque would defile the neighborhood near Ground Zero are asking him to undermine the war on terrorism. A war on Islam would make a war on terrorism impossible,” Gerson writes.