BRIT WRITER NAILS IT AGAIN – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  Toby Harnden of Britain's Telegraph has been one of the most astute observers of the Obama administration, and was one of the first to figure Obama out.  Now he asks a legitimate question:  Why does Obama help fuel the notion that America, the most multicultural nation on Earth, is intolerant?  Hmm.

As the whole world knows, there is a furore raging over the proposed building of a 15-storey Islamic community centre, containing a mosque, two blocks from Ground Zero, site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda.

America's liberal elites have been falling over themselves to denounce their country and fellow citizens as anti-Muslim xenophobes who don't understand that it was not all followers of Islam who were responsible for the atrocities of 2001.

And...

In fact, most evidence points to the US being one of the most tolerant countries in the world. A poll from you won't see cited much because it doesn't fit the prevailing narrative was recently conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute.

It found that 76 per cent of Americans would support Muslims in their community building an Islamic centre or mosque provided they followed the same rules and regulations required of other religious groups. But the 9/11 site is seen as different. After the 9/11 attacks there was no anti-Muslim backlash in the US.

Obama's ill-judged intervention, and the shrill outrage of his allies in the intelligentsia, has damaged America's standing in the world by fuelling anti-American stereotypes.

They don't care about that.  They love those anti-American stereotypes.

Many Americans are incensed by the way that legitimate protest and questioning of Obama's policies is routinely branded as racist or ignorant. They are tired of being told what to think and when to think it.

During the 2008 campaign, for instance, you were a bigot if you mentioned Obama's middle name or his Muslim background. Yet once he was elected, he went to Ankara and Cairo to proclaim that his full name was "Barack Hussein Obama".

Wonderfully stated.  Charles Krauthammer has made the same point equally well.

When will Americans understand that we have an elite, at least part of it, that is overtly anti-American?  Member of this group see themselves as above the country, above the rabble, above "those people out there."  These are the same elitists who, at election time, say that they're championing average Americans.  But they rarely condescend even to speak with those very people they claim to represent.

August 29, 2010