THE DISGRACE – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  By now most of you know that the "Ground Zero mosque" cleared its final legal hurdle in New York City.  Now the sponsors of this project can go ahead and build...if they can raise the money.  And, as Bill O'Reilly said last night, if they can get construction workers to work on it.

What has struck me about the discussion over this issue is, once again, the arrogance of those who favor the mosque.  Some, no doubt, are well meaning.  But the endless condemnation of those who oppose the mosque as "racists" or "bigots" is pretty hard to take.  The language of the sixties is back with us, full blown.  Similarly, I'm incensed when the pro-mosquers start waving the American flag, a flag that, in other circumstances, they'd barely recognize.  I almost choke when they invoke "American values," values some of them ridicule.  Mayor Bloomberg, who has been a fine mayor, made a fool of himself yesterday when, with the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop, and surrounded by clergy, endorsed the mosque and invoked "American values."

No one is denying the First Amendment rights of those who want to build the mosque.  We are saying that their action is insensitive to the survivors and to the American people generally.  As O'Reilly also pointed out, this is a national, not a local issue.  Ground Zero is not merely a patch of real estate in Manhatan.  It is the scene of a national tragedy brought about by a military attack.  But President Obama has, disgracefully, declined to make any comment about the mosque issue.  Only 20% of Americans favor the mosque, as registered in a recent poll.  Maybe that's why the president doesn't want to get involved.  I have a hunch I know where he stands.

Press coverage has also been as insensitive as the mosque builders.  "Modern" reporters don't like to deal with such basic things as human feelings.  It isn't what they were taught be the leftovers from the sixties who miseducated them in college.

How much wiser it would have been for the Muslim community simply to say, "We understand the feelings involved.  We'll build somewhere else."  And then, they might have received widespread support and financial contributions.

Most of the journalistic and political class has performed badly.  Why am I not surprised?

Let's hope the thing never gets built.  The money people may not want to be identified with it.

August 4,  2010