Josh Marshall has a good summary of the particularly odious, despicable edition of “Mike’s Playbook” that came out today. Mostly, it’s Republicans crowing about how Real Murkins are against the Cordoba House and will turn on Obama for his statement last night. A lot of it is just random quotes from various people — “Top GOP strategist”, “Democratic Congressman”, etc. nearly all of them anonymous, natch. Here was my favorite part:
A middle American: “This is too much. It’s not insensitivity that’s leading these guys to build this mosque. It’s a monument to their conquer of the site — just like the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem or the conversion of the Hagia Sophia (former primary church of the Byzantine empire in Istanbul) into a mosque and now a museum.”
Daddy-O
As far as I’m concerned, as soon as Bush invaded Iraq, we lost.
PanAmerican
Like The Onion’s American Voices bit.
What percentage of “middle Americans” know fuck all about the Hagia Sophia? If you’re going to make quotes up at least make them plausible.
Steve
I used to build the Hagia Sophia in Civ IV, but as World Wonders go, it was frankly pretty mediocre. Let the Muslims have it I say.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Unless Rush, Glenn and the other fReichtards in Chiefs have been talking about the Hagia Sophia and Al-Aqsa, I’m having trouble with the idea that a “Middle American” who doesn’t know the word conquest would know either of these buildings if you dropped them on his head.
Nice try DougJ. Next time say you’re a War Veteran or something and remember: Full incoherence or nothing.
Warren Terra
Somehow I’m guessing that the guy who said that doesn’t have the same worries about triumphalist usurpation when he sees Catholic churches built in converted Pagan temples in Rome, or those built in converted mosques in Spain. Or when he sees a frigging Christmas tree in every shopping mall in the country, an implicit celebration of the dominant faith’s having conquered Pagan nations and retained and repurposed some of their rituals.
Omnes Omnibus
[italics added]
Conquer?
Omnes Omnibus
@Warren Terra: Don’t even get me started on Easter.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PanAmerican: I don’t doubt the quote is genuine (I overheard a drunk last night claiming to be a Clinton supporter who misses Bush), but the notion that this paranoid obsessive represents your average Joe Twelve-Pack is too much. Maybe some of Hewitt’s listeners got hold of Allen’s email address, and that’s who he turns to for a view from “The Heartland”. I wouldn’t put anything past that little twit.
kay
Where’s former President Bush on this?
This particular Muslim imam was part of Bush’s “I am a moderate and absolutely not launching a religious war” PR push, was he not?
Thrown under the bus, poor guy. Used and then discarded, by Principled Conservatives.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Warren Terra:
Except Hagia Sophia wasn’t Catholic, or built on top of a pagan temple.
Steve
@Amanda in the South Bay: The Burlington Coat Factory wasn’t Catholic either, if you want to be technical.
FlipYrWhig
So it’s just like the Muslims taking over other people’s holy sites, in that it’s turning from a temple dedicated to secular capitalism into a mosque. Other than the fact that it’s not on the site, not a mosque, and didn’t use to be holy. The pattern is undeniable!
Amanda in the South Bay
@Steve:
Last I checked I didn’t really give a shit about returning churches/mosques to their previous owners, but Hagia Sophia really doesn’t fit into the whole “the evil Christians stole our mosque/pagan temple” meme.
FlipYrWhig
@Steve: I’ve shopped at a Burlington Coat Factory. Got some nice shirts there, but I wouldn’t call it a religious experience.
lawnorder
@PanAmerican:
QFT.. Quoted for truth
Mark S.
Here’s an “influential Republican aide”:
Fuck you, asshole. Democrats take that one pretty literally, and don’t read it as only freedom for Christians and Jews.
Steve
@Amanda in the South Bay: I sorta thought his point was that the guy is upset the Muslims converted a Christian church, but he likely isn’t upset by historical instances of Christians converting a mosque.
J sub D
Ooooo-kayyyyy. Mind if I wet my pants over this later?
valdivia
if these people had been around during the declaration of the rights of men they would have headlined it “Rights of Men: How do they play politically?”
Fuck them.
demo woman
When President Obama took the oath of office he swore to uphold the constitution. Last night his speech indicated that he took his oath seriously. How many Republicans will do the same? It’s time to take a count. I plan on writing to representatives to see where they stand.
Joseph Nobles
Let’s have a shoutout for the Pantheon and the Luxor Temple.
Zandar
Just wait until Sun Wukong gets done with these assholes…
QDC
Does anyone know who Burlington Coat Factory conquered the site from?
Mark S.
@kay:
When Bush is done presidenting, he’s done presidenting. He overtaxed his brain so much for eight years he can no longer speak and has to have his diaper changed. He regressed back to infancy.
KCinDC
No one could’ve predicted that Politico would be spinning things to convince liberals happy about Obama’s standing up for the First Amendment that they should be disappointed instead.
And if the right to build Cordoba House is a “trivial, legal point”, then why is the media filled with screaming wingnuts who disagree with it?
KCinDC
No one could’ve predicted that Politico would be spinning things to convince liberals happy about Obama’s standing up for the First Amendment that they should be disappointed instead.
And if the right to build Cordoba House is a “trivial, legal point”, then why is the media filled with screaming wingnuts who disagree with it?
Omnes Omnibus
@QDC: It might have been a Filene’s Basement, but that would be more of schism than a different religion.
kay
@Mark S.:
Poor Andrew Sullivan. Former President Bush ignored his plea to defend religious liberty, so now he’s waiting on Mitt Romney.
Know hope, Andrew, but don’t hold your breath. Just because Mitt Romney himself suffered from the religious bigotry of the conservative base does not mean he’s sticking his neck out.
FlipYrWhig
@QDC: Who can remember the Burlington Crusades anymore…
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus: From the standpoint of the Loehmann’s people, they’re all heretics.
QDC
@kay:
You mean Mitt Romney has to choose between a principled stand and a position that would please the right wing of the Republican Party? If only previous experience had provided some insight into how he might handle such a dilemma. The suspense is killing me!
morzer
@kay:
We regret to inform customers that RomneyTron 5.27c does not at this time possess a spinal unit. We have been working very hard on this, as well as the consistency issues, but so far unsuccessfully.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@J sub D:
Sorry, but the first rule of Fright Club is, you always have to talk about Fright Club. Them’s the rules, and we expect you to stick with ’em.
Here’s your gold-plated, official Glenn Beck approved bedpan. Get busy.
me
@Warren Terra: One of the most famous converted mosques is in Cordoba, Spain.
jeffreyw
I pledge my allegiance to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Long may His Spicy Tentacles wave. R’amen.
Omnes Omnibus
@me: Stop confusing the issue.
Violet
@kay:
I would be seriously impressed with Pres. Bush the Younger if he made a statement reminding everyone that, just as he said in 2001, good people of the Islamic faith and there are terrorists and not every Muslim is a terrorist.
But that might mess up the Talking Points and influence the election negatively for the Republicans. So he won’t.
Sad.
FlipYrWhig
@Violet: Do you think Bush cares about Republicans who aren’t him or related to him? I never got that impression.
kay
@morzer:
I have to take a break from Andrew Sullivan. Between this pathetic pleading and his begging individual conservative commentators to accept his marriage, his whole Principled Conservative quest is just making me sad.
Just give up. There are none.
Steve
@KCinDC: I would be disappointed if Obama was like “they have the legal right to do it, but they really shouldn’t.” What he actually said, I predict, will disappoint few liberals.
Frankly, I’m not personally convinced that this project is the best way to build bridges between Islam and the West; they seem to be starting off in a pretty deep PR hole. But the bottom line is that if someone wants to build a house of worship in this country, it’s no one else’s freakin’ business.
morzer
@kay:
Sullivan grossly over-rates his own importance – and he always has a streak of opportunistic self-promotion not far beneath the surface. Myself, I am done with the Atlantic. I am not going to read a magazine that bigs up Jeffrey Goldberg and calls the result journalism.
kay
@Violet:
I think he and Karen Hughes should defend this individual, because this individual helped them refute the notion that the Bush Administration was launching a religious war.
Liz Cheney is trashing this person.
Where is that vaunted conservative personal loyalty? I was told it was their single good quality.
KCinDC
@Steve, judging by Twitter, some frequent Obama critics who were praising Obama last night are now embracing Politico’s “walkback” narrative—Peter Daou certainly is. So Politico may be successfully preventing last night’s comments from undoing any of the damage from the Gibbs idiocy.
cleek
Muslims conquered NYC ?
morzer
@KCinDC:
Does anyone care what Peter DooDoo thinks anyway?
Steve
Some comments on the mosque issue from the Florida Senate candidates.
Charlie Crist:
Jeff Greene, that clown who is trying to buy the Democratic nomination:
Steve
@KCinDC: Like I used to say back during the primary, haters will hate.
morzer
@Steve:
Charlie Crist is kinda growing on me…. As for Jeff Greene, I wouldn’t give that corrupt thug a free kick in the pants.
kay
@morzer:
I like him. He’s very human and complicated. I only read him like I read a novel, for pleasure. He doesn’t really know anything about policy.
He just does this annoying….thing where he looks for validation from people he considers “intellectual, decent conservatives” and they constantly reject him, in a deeply personal and mean-spirited way ( his MARRIAGE, for God’s sake ) and that makes me sad.
He can’t quit them, but they long ago quit him.
Svensker
@FlipYrWhig:
LOL
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek: Some of my ancestors bought a big chunk of Long Island from the Native Americans, but they were Puritans and I am not sure that LI counts as New York in this context.
morzer
@kay:
I just remember too many times when Sullivan was on the wrong side, and did quite a bit of damage. Betsy McCaughey, the Bell Curve, cheerleading the Iraq war etc etc. Sorry, but I don’t trust him. I hope he does get what he wants on gay marriage, but his series of failed man-crushes on the latest “reasonable” conservative tells me all I need to know about his judgment.
Svensker
@Steve:
Why? What’s the best way? Just curious.
morzer
@Svensker:
Well, the Turks have a bridge across the Bosphorus…. but perhaps they don’t count after attacking the peaceful Israeli commando unit that just happened to be going for their annual sea cruise….
Omnes Omnibus
@Svensker: I am going to go with cantilever.
KCinDC
@Steve, sure, I was just struck by how well Politico has learned to play these people.
kommrade reproductive vigor
There’s a surprise. [eye roll]
Joe
@#48 kay
I wasn’t sure if you were talking about Sullivan or Crist for a minute there. With the doesn’t know anything about policy, the marriage reference and the mean spirited conservatives thing.
matoko_chan
@morzer:
look you guyz are just as OCD about murrays book as wingnuts are about cordoba house. this is a 16 year old book written by a FUCKING POLITICAL SCIENCE MAJOR.
no one cares anymore.
the science community has moved on.
you should too.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@kay: Andrew doesn’t like Romney. He knows Mittens is PlasticMan. I think Sully wishes David Cameron could move here.
matoko_chan
look……Sully and TNC are both knee-capped by a pantswetting fear of a uniparty america.
that is why they give tongue to Douthat and McMeghan and Weigel.
i say let them burn.
something else will evolve.
we survived the whigs going down.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
Applying for the role of Barney Frank’s dining-room table again, eh?
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: Most of us think you should move on from your memetic selection for IQ thing and look how far that has gotten us. Seriously though, while the scientific community may have moved beyond it, there are quite a few people outside of it who have not.
matoko_chan
@kay: no kay, its the uniparty thing i think. Sully and TNC both relly believe that Douthat and Weigel are decent humans being forced by “the system” to embrace atrocity so we can keep two parties.
i dunno why a uniparty system would be any worse than what we have now at this point.
Roger Moore
@Steve:
I think that’s pretty much backward. They started out in a deep PR hole, which is why the attacks against them have been so effective, and the goal of the Cordoba Initiative is to dig their way out. If they cave now, the bigots would immediately claim that doing so validated all their claims. In retrospect the plans might not have been the best, but now that the controversy exists they can’t afford to back down.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: the liberal conservative IQ gap is nice and fresh. its bleeding edge science.
like murray was 16 years ago.
sides, its not genetics….its memetics, evo bio and gametheory.
;)
PanAmerican
@cleek:
It’s for dissemination to the mega-church set. The implication being the moo-suhl-men will convert the Chrystal Cathedral into a mosque.
Warren Terra
@Matoko_Chan
I don’t think anyone’s obsessing over The Bell Curve itself, given that as you say it’s sixteen years old and people aren’t that interested in debating its claims – but Sullivan, as a contributor to the public conversation, isn’t sixteen years out of date, he’s quite current, and his pattern of behavior is quite relevant, including his record and whether he shows any signs of learning from that record.
And he simply doesn’t. Man’s a total narcissist, but he’s not noticeably introspective. He’s never notuceably regretted his awful record on McCaughy or The Bell Curve, including defending both as recently last year. If he ever apologized for his truly vile “Fifth Column” comments, I missed it. And while he was about four years early in deciding that Dubya “betrayed Conservatism” he never seems to have contemplated how he chose to follow him.
I’m glad Sullivan supports Obama, but as with everything he does I’m convinced he does so for emotional reasons, not rational ones, and he embraces many more pernicious causes with equal fervor and with even less consideration. He’s not a bad man, I think, but he’s a tremendously shallow man, and a very weak man, and I – however much I welcome his eloquent statements against Torture and for inclusion of sexual and religious minorities, I simply cannot trust his judgement..
Steve
@Roger Moore: I didn’t say they should cave. I was happy when they didn’t accept that craven compromise Gov. Paterson offered. I don’t think I’m being very controversial by saying this wasn’t necessarily the greatest idea in the first place, full stop.
morzer
@Warren Terra:
Thanks for actually reading what I said about Sullivan. It would be nice if some people..well, one person, bothered to do so and think through the whole point, rather than cherry-picking one book to get all panty-bunched about.
Jay C
@Omnes Omnibus:
Depends on where you live NOW. Back in, I think, the 1660’s , Connecticut tried to seize the bulk of Long Island (somewhere, I believe, around the Queens/Nassau line), and were only driven off by terroristic aggression from the New York militia (who were, at that time, mostly Dutch, and therefore probably incipient soshulist Euro-weenie sellouts). So maybe you might have a claim to pursue. Count Omnes of Hempstead??
FlipYrWhig
@Steve: You’re right, the abandoned Burlington Coat Factory really did wonders for the neighborhood.
kay
@morzer:
I watched Mitt Romney’s religious-minority speech. The media morons compared it to Kennedy, but that wasn’t true. Kennedy’s was a little defiant, like Obama is here (as defiant as the reserved Obama gets, anyway).
Romney almost apologized, and it had a forced quality. It made me cringe. It was directed at conservative primary voters. “Please accept me”. Yuck. These “issues” conservatives latch onto are deeply personal to these individuals. Trying to fit in extracts such a price.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay C:
The folks from Connecticut would be my bunch. So much of which to be proud, and they aren’t even the ancestors involved in the Pequot War or the Salem witch trials.
Steve
@FlipYrWhig: Could it be that I literally have to say the proposed community center is the most awesome bridge-building idea anyone ever concocted in order to avoid people picking fights?
tavella
Playing their game again. A group does a simple, ordinary thing — buy a piece of property to build a community center — and the right wing turns on the controversy machine at full, and soon enough ‘liberals’ and ‘moderates’ buy into the controversy framing. Oh, they’ll put on their weak defense, but they buy everything the right wing says.
DougJ
@Steve:
I honestly believe it is a very good way to build bridges between Islam and the west.
matoko_chan
@Roger Moore:
no…..YOU FUCKING DUMBASS…..the best way would be to STOP GOING OVER THERE AND FUCKING ATTACKING MUSLIMS.
Stop trying to proselytize western culture with COIN and the Bush Doctrine. IT CANT WORK. Islam is evolutionarily immune to proselytization.
Stop the war on Islam.
Stop fucking meddling in the rest of the worlds bidness.
Big white christian bwana go home.
morzer
@kay:
It was a rather cringe-worthy performance, that’s for sure. Mind you, I always thought Romney saw it as pure theater, rather than likely to change any minds in the GOP, and so didn’t really get himself up for it.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
Either you don’t know what evolutionarily means, or you are misspelling some other long word.
Omnes Omnibus
@morzer: I am starting to think the cleek pie filter might be appropriate, but sometimes she is interesting for a short period of time.
Steve
@tavella: If their purpose was to have a place for the downtown NYC Muslim community to congregate and worship, they made exactly the right decision and I wouldn’t want them to change a thing.
If their purpose was to promote bridges and understanding between Islam and the West, I think they could have chosen innumerable bridge-building steps that wouldn’t have been opposed by 70% of the country.
I know it’s fun to pretend like everything is a faux controversy ginned up by Sarah Palin and everyone who thinks otherwise is a weak-kneed pseudoliberal. Let’s remember, again, what I actually said: “I’m not personally convinced that this project is the best way to build bridges between Islam and the West.” Oh, the horror of that opinion!
Steve
@DougJ: I’m all ears!
Roger Moore
@Steve:
I’m still not so sure. The problem is that the whole controversy was manufactured from whole cloth. There’s no obvious way to anticipate that this particular project would draw the ire of wingnuts nationwide. More important, since the whole business was manufactured, avoiding this particular project wouldn’t have done any good. The wingnuts would just find some other excuse to get their hate on. We can’t preemptively give up on every project that might cause a wingnut freakout, both because it would mean giving up on everything that liberals want to accomplish and because it still wouldn’t work.
We just have to realize that wingnuts are going to keep freaking out regularly and have resources around to counter them on whatever is triggering the hate this week. If anything, I think it might be a good idea to have some deliberately provocative projects around just to draw wingnut ire away from more substantive parts of the progressive agenda.
Martin
@Steve: And that’s why we have rights – so that we can do the things that everyone else thinks aren’t the greatest ideas, such as desegregating schools, letting gays and blacks marry, and so on.
The only thing that made it a bad idea is our prejudices and our overall tolerance of the bigots and racists that would whip up the hate. That’s not their fault.
wobbly
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/nyregion/11mosque.html
NYTimes article says the Cordoba Initiative consulted with September 11 Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow as they developed plans for the cultural center. Those families apparently saw the project as a bridge builder.
gwangung
@Roger Moore: Exactly.
And really….this is these particular’s Muslims’ way to mourn their dead of 9/11. The wingnuts are being excruciatingly insenstive to reject it. It’s a slap in their face.
gwangung
@wobbly: So the wingnuts are slapping the 9/11 families in the face to reject this, hm?
Roger Moore
@matoko_chan:
A) Please don’t blame me for the comments of the person I’m replying to.
B) Bridges have to go both ways. Getting the hell out of the Middle East might be the best way of getting Muslims to accept us- or at least reducing the damage we’re currently doing- but we also have to find a way of convincing Americans to accept Muslims. That second part is what the Cordoba Initiative is trying to achieve. Getting Americans to accept Muslims might be more important in practice, because doing so will make easier to convince them to get the hell out of the Middle East.
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah, but would that noble filter really change very much?
Steve
@wobbly: Something anyone from NYC can tell you, particularly those familiar with the WTC reconstruction effort, is that there are a LOT of September 11 Families’ groups from all over the political spectrum. My personal viewpoint is that all of those people
have earned the right via their sacrifice to have their opinions heard and respected, but having said that, an awful lot of them are complete cranks.
One of the reasons it’s taken us so long to put that dang building back up is all these disparate groups, each with their own agenda, loudly proclaiming that anything aside from their chosen plan would be a deep affront to the memory of the heroes of 9/11.
The organization you named happens to be a liberal, anti-war organization of about 200 9/11 family members. That makes them aces in my book, but I don’t think it would be especially savvy to take the endorsement of that group as some kind of confirmation that no one could possibly be offended.
Now if Debra Burlingame had said it would be a great bridge-building idea, that would be different…
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
What do the 9/11 families know about it? How can they possibly share the pain that those of us in Real America(TM) feel? They’re just a bunch of attention whores trying to steal the spotlight from the people who were the true victims of 9/11. /wingnut
Omnes Omnibus
@morzer: No, but it would be nonsense about pie. I like pie.
kay
@gwangung:
Sarah Palin is a one-woman angry mob. If she’s in it, it gets stupid and ugly, fast. Can anyone point to a single instance where she has contributed anything worthwhile to any discussion? Any positive result of her opening her yap, ever?
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: She helped ensure that McCain lost.
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
I like Ike .. could we combine them somehow? Ike pie with my little eye….
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, bravo. Good point. Okay. I give her that.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: She also reinvigorated SNL for a couple of months. Beyond that, I take your point.
morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
And we did get to see more of that toothsome Tina Fey as a result… though not in a towel, alas!
DougJ
@Steve:
In the spirit of inclusiveness, I will refer you to Jeff Goldberg’s piece about this.
Belvoir
Real ‘Muricans: Where’s these so-called “moderate” Muslins in all this? They don’t exist, they’re all evil terrists!
Cordoba House Muslim community: Uh, hi, here we are. And we’re interested in talking, terrorism is a grave concen for us, too.
Real ‘Muricans: There’s the terrists! Grab the pitchforks!
Steve
@DougJ: Read it, liked it, linked it to many wingnut friends. But maybe we don’t disagree if that’s all you’re saying.
DougJ
@Steve:
That’s all I’m saying so I guess we agree.
Uloborus
@morzer:
He’s right, Matoko. Memetic selection for IQ is fine. It’s more a few interesting facts than any kind of proven theory, but sociology’s tough that way. You use evolution… oddly. Do bear in mind that it can take, like, 200 generations for any real change in variation and guessing what is more or less adaptive is almost always a guess. With humans it IS always a guess.
FlipYrWhig
@Steve: I just think the whole “controversy” is stupid because it all hinges on the idea that “two blocks” is equivalent to “at the site.” It’s not at the site, and by urban-core standards, it’s not particularly close or even visible. This is like complaining that an Asian guy sells pretzels too close to the Vietnam memorial because his cart is two streets away, and it traumatizes the veterans.
Steve
@FlipYrWhig: I really struggle to explain this concept to people. I go to the WTC every day and I have never, ever been to the site of the “mosque” and I doubt I have even seen it. But even some of my co-workers who know the local geography are dead-set against it, so who knows.
Nellcote
Wingnuts might be able to claim that the Cordoba project is a special case if it wasn’t part of a pattern of trying to stop mosque building across the country. Clearly it’s not the location that’s the entire problem for them.
Shell Goddamnit
@FlipYrWhig:
Perfect. Thank you, I am stealing this for mine own use forthwith. I’m sure you won’t mind…