Stragglers

In their counter-offensive to the groundswell of public anger over the “ground zero mosque” (GZM) and in their effort to protect President Obama, Left-leaning pundits are suggesting that any objection to the GZM is unAmerican.

In article after mainstream article, commentators and reporters accuse a significant majority of the American public of (1) trampling on Freedom of Religion, (2) outright Islamophobia, or (3) rank stupidity.

Bobby Gosch writing in Time Magazine asks “Does American have a Muslim Problem?” His piece exemplifies the Islamophobia mime and begins by noting generously that “You don't have to be prejudiced against Islam to believe, as many Americans do, that the area around Ground Zero is a sacred place.” but soon concludes that “it is plain that many of Park51's [GZM] opponents are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.”

He goes on to suggest that although there has been no violence against Muslims in the U.S., “hate speech” is on the rise. Mr. Gosch never mentions the “hate speech” that appears daily in government-sanctioned media throughout the Muslim world, nor the direct and irrefutable “hate speech” spoken almost daily by national leaders such as Iran’s Mahmoud Amadinejad.

Margaret Carlson writes an article that exemplifies the stupidity mime:

How can President Barack Obama be so right about the mosque and yet get it so wrong?

Here’s how: He is so supremely confident in his intellect that he forgets, on his way to the correct decision, to slow down and pick up not-so-gifted stragglers …

He’s an intellectual comfortable with abstractions, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, a constitutional scholar, a community organizer …

Ms. Carlson fails to recognize that more than a few of us have degrees to match the President’s, are very comfortable with abstractions. and have accomplished far more in our lives than being a “constitutional scholar” (an assertion that is highly suspect) or “a community organizer” (a job that most serious 45 year olds would be embarrassed to put on their Resume). She fails to grasp the simple reality that there are many, many reasons to oppose the GZM and that none of them have anything to do with the stupidity of us “not-so-gifted stragglers.”

In both cases, Gosch’s and Carlson’s arguments is both offensive and condescending. But in reality, their use of ad hominem attacks is nothing more than laughably predictable and pathetically unconvincing.

Update: (8/20/2010):

As an example of a more reasoned argument (one that does not use ad hominem attacks or insult those who champion the mosque), consider the words of conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer:

Radical Islam is not, by any means, a majority of Islam. But with its financiers, clerics, propagandists, trainers, leaders, operatives and sympathizers -- according to a conservative estimate, it commands the allegiance of 7 percent of Muslims, i.e., more than 80 million souls -- it is a very powerful strain within Islam. It has changed the course of nations and affected the lives of millions. It is the reason every airport in the West is an armed camp and every land is on constant alert.

Ground Zero is the site of the most lethal attack of that worldwide movement, which consists entirely of Muslims, acts in the name of Islam and is deeply embedded within the Islamic world. These are regrettable facts, but facts they are. And that is why putting up a monument to Islam in this place is not just insensitive but provocative.