Michael Moore describes Bush's seven minute fail pretty accurately in the above video. You've probably heard and seen that Bush didn't show up for the Ground Zero memorial today even after Obama invited him:

The White House says Obama's trip will include a private meeting with family members of 9/11 victims, a meeting with first responders that will be open to some news coverage, and a wreath-laying at the 9/11 memorial. Obama invited former President George W. Bush to accompany him, but Bush declined.

"President Bush will not be in attendance on Thursday," The New York Times quoted his spokesman David Sherzer as saying. "He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight. He continues to celebrate with Americans this important victory in the war on terror."

Bush, whose presidency was defined by the al-Qaida-led Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has largely maintained a low public profile since leaving office.

It's not surprising that Bush wouldn't want to be there since he had a chance to get Bin Laden at Tora Bora, but didn't even though those actions contradicted his bullhorn speech.

Digby writes:

Yes. Actually it's quite easy to picture a petulant and jealous Junior Bush not wanting to be part of a ceremony that highlights his failure to achieve his most cherished desire.
--
Bush froze in the spotlight when told the United States was under attack and that 's the equivalent of deliberate decision making in a military operation. But hey, you can't blame them. When you have to rely on a second grader's interpretation of events you know you're reaching --- that and a bullhorn is all they've got left of their mighty, macho warrior president and it's got to hurt. They really care about that crap.

Fox News and the right-wing propaganda machine have gone to great lengths to try and rehabilitate Bush's image after those seven minutes. Now, the wingnuts are pouncing on a news report out by the New York Daily News' Thomas DeFrank: Little Boy George didn't go today because he had a hissy fit.

Little Green Footballs:

This, of course, is delicious red meat for people like Jim “Dim” Hoft (aka “Gateway Pundit”): Bush Wises Up… Won’t Be Prop For Obama’s Victory Lap | The Gateway Pundit

DERPBush wises up.
President Obama was wrong on waterboarding, renditions, the Iraq War, the Surge, Gitmo, military tribunals, and the Patriot Act. Now he wants to take full credit for getting Osama Bin Laden and wants to use George W. Bush as a prop.
Bush ain’t going for it.

Bush policies kept America safe and led us to Osama Bin Laden. (History.com)

The former president feels Obama is ignoring the Bush Administration’s role in the strike on the Osama Bin Laden compound. He won’t be a prop for Obama at Ground Zero today.

There’s just one teensy problem with this idiots’ narrative.

It’s completely false: Wife: Bush skips 9/11 NY event to keep low profile.

Laura Bush told The Associated Press on Thursday that she and her husband were out to dinner Sunday night when they received word that Obama wanted to speak with him. The former president went home to take the call informing him that U.S. military forces had killed Osama bin Laden in a raid of his compound in Pakistan, Laura Bush said.

The former first lady told the AP that her husband declined an invitation to attend Thursday’s event in New York because “that’s for President Obama to do at this point.”

She said she and her husband both felt great pride for military and intelligence personnel after hearing the news.

“It was risky and it was dangerous for our members of the military,” Laura Bush said at a Dallas elementary school where she announced grants from her foundation for school libraries.

I guess they don't believe the former First Lady.

Progressive Alaska: A Planet-Wide Explosion of Religious Nutcases

Tom Scott: Journalism Warning Labels

BTC News: Thorsten Veblen hits the streets

The Brad Blog: The same touch-screen systems to be used by millions of voters this November are easily hacked, without breaking the 'tamper-evident' seals

Just An Earth-Bound Misfit: You have to wonder how the 'ground zero mosque' controversy is playing on al-Jazeera

Crooked Timber: EU-US convergence?

I don't see how DFA could avoid breaking with Dr. Dean's position on the construction of an Islamic community center in downtown NYC. But Dr. Dean does have a point:

The grassroots political organization founded by Howard Dean after the 2004 presidential election has made a dramatic break with the former DNC chairman over the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero.

Democracy for America, a million-plus member organization that is active on a host of legislative fronts, formally endorsed the controversial Cordoba House on Thursday, one day after its founding figure called for the project to be built elsewhere.

In a letter sent to members, the group's executive director, Arshad Hasan, weaves together his personal history with a detailed explanation of the project's lofty and noble objectives. In a direct but diplomatic touch, he addresses Dean's opposition only by explaining that "well-intentioned" Democrats are "getting caught up" in the anti-mosque hysteria. "It's not helping," writes Hasan.

[L]et's be clear, the subject of the highest profile Muslim structure, 51 Park in New York City, will have a basketball court and a culinary school. Two floors will have a prayer room. The other eleven will host movie nights, performances, group dinners, etc -- it's basically a Muslim YMCA, open to everyone. These moderate Muslims are doing everything we could ask of them. They're trying to build a bridge in the communities they live in, trying to show the world that Muslims are cool and interesting and diverse, and proving that being a Muslim does not equal being a terrorist.

But they're being thrown under the bus by our elected leaders, egged on by some of the ugliest elements of the right-wing. Well-intentioned leaders of the Democratic Party are getting caught up in the fray as well, some of them seeking to find common ground with an implacable opposition. It's not helping.

This isn't just a Manhattan problem. Right now, there is opposition to mosques in Staten Island, Brooklyn, Southern California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, and dozens of other locations across our nation. Where would they move? If public pressure can be brought to bear to take down the most high-profile Muslim community center in liberal NYC, then these other places don't even have a chance, Ground Zero connection or not.

Frankly, this isn't about Ground Zero. This is about America. This is about freedom. This is about people and there seems to be no place that Muslim people can go without being harassed.

The harassment has to stop, and that starts with you and me.

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"How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions." -- Logan Pearsall Smith.

Bill O'Reilly was all a-squawk yesterday at the prospect that someone might point out what's obvious to everyone who's watched the growing fake "controversy" over the NYC "Ground Zero" mosque -- namely, that the predicate of people's objections to it revolve around their irrational and bigoted eagerness to lump peaceful American Muslims in with a tiny handful of violent radicals.

O'Reilly: Here's the question. How does the far left survive in this country? How? That crew is so hateful, so harmful to the nation, it's amazing they have any platform at all. If you oppose gay marriage, you're a homophobe. If you want a secure southern border, you are anti-Hispanic. And now, if you think building a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate, you are intolerant, an anti-Muslim bigot.

... Do you see what's happening here, ladies and gentlemen? The far left will never debate the merits of the issue. They simply attack and begin branding their opponents as racists, bigots, and un-American. Let's get down to it. There are thousands of Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11. Many of these people feel a Muslim display so near the attack zone is hurtful because fanatical Muslims killed their family and friends. So, where is the tolerance toward the 9/11 families? Where is the understanding and respect for their feelings?

President Obama well understands the emotions in play, which is why he will not comment on the so-called wisdom of building a mosque so close to Ground Zero. But the far left doesn't care about the wisdom of the project because they are promoting the fiction that America is mean to Muslims. Anything that makes U.S. policy seem oppressive is embraced by these loons.

Every poll says the majority of Americans believe the proposed mosque is simply not a good idea. Nobody I know wants to violate religious freedom. Nobody wants to persecute Muslims. Nobody wants to cause trouble. What we do want is a sane country. Again, I don't know how the far left continues to survive in the USA. And that's the Memo.

A little while later, he brought on Karl Rove to affix his seal of approval -- and he only confirmed that Republicans are sinking to the lowest kind of bigotry in this affair:

Rove: They're demonstrating that they're way out of touch with the American people. This is an issue in which the vast majority of American people believe there is a freedom of religion that is ingrained in our Constitution, and that right of freedom, of free expression of religion is best exercised by not building it here.

Look, we've got a free -- in that same First Amendment, there is a right of freedom of speech. Who believes that, say, skinheads should show up at a black sorority convention and scream bigoted remarks? Who believes that there is a right of freedom of assembly? Who believes, you know, that neo-Nazis should show up at the B'nai B'rith hotel and have their meeting in the same, you know, the next meeting room?

There are rights that everyone has that it would be prudent not to exercise them at certain times, and this right that they have to build a religious building where they want should be prudently exercised elsewhere.

It does seem that Rove doesn't actually believe there is freedom of assembly. In point of fact, we do allow neo-Nazis to hold rallies in racially inflamed communities, just as we allow the Fred Phelpses of the world to show up at the funerals of soldiers.

But it tells us everything we need to know about the right-wing perspective on this that he would blithely compare Muslims practicing their religion peacefully to neo-Nazis and skinheads -- as though they're moral equivalents.

Continue reading »

Activistpost.: 10 signs the U.S. is becoming a third-world country

The Moderate Voice: Ground Zero 'Radical' Imam Was Working With the FBI

ICEPN: Holt, 17 Reps call on Holder to ensure the integrity of voting systems (h/t swimgirl)

Faithful Progressive: Surely Wisconsin won't sink this low

Mad Kane’s Political Madness: Mosque Mockerynopoly’

The Big Picture: Judge nixes Citi-SEC settlement

Christopher Preble over at the Cato Institute aptly notes that starting a war against all Muslims might not, in fact, be in our national interest:

This strategy, exploiting still-raw emotion and implicitly demonizing Muslims, threatens to trade short-term political gain for medium-term political harm to the party. And it most certainly will translate into long-term harm for the country at large.

Opposing the construction of a mosque near the Ground Zero site plays into al Qaeda’s narrative that the United States is engaged in a war with Islam, that bin Laden and his tiny band of followers represent something more than a pitiful group of murderers and thugs, and that all American Muslims are an incipient Fifth Column that must be either converted to Christianity or driven out of the country, else they will undermine American society from within. [...]

[W]ho within the GOP will affirm the party’s position that declaring a war on Islam does not advance our nation’s security?

Indeed, from a sane person's point of view the desire to declare more than a billion people around the world to be your sworn enemies seems to be somewhat unwise. There is a perfectly rational counterpoint to this, however: If we let the Muslims build their mosques, they will giggle at the size of our pathetic white penises. Sam Harris logically outlines this view in a Daily Beast column:

The erection of a mosque upon the ashes of this atrocity will also be viewed by many millions of Muslims as a victory—and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice.

Y'hear that, America? They're gonna erect something big and long right in the middle of your bosom. Are you gonna stand fer that?

Similar noises have been grunted by one of our fiercest holy crusaders, the Radical Cleric Newt al-Ginrichinedad:

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

That's right! Newt's sick and tired of submissively bending over for the Muslims! He at least demands that the Saudis give us a reach around first!

Ahem. If I may be (semi)serious for a moment:

If millions of Muslims around the world are actually anticipating a mosque being built in the same neighborhood as a Lower Manhattan strip club so that they can laugh and call us girly-men, then they really need to get lives. I mean guys, seriously. I don't sit fixated to my television waiting to see a report of a new McDonald's getting built near Mecca. There are better uses of my time.

But see, this is the beauty of living in a free society. We can't stop Muslims from building mosques and impugning our manhood*. But at the same time, we can't stop stupid wingnuts from burning the Koran, nor can we stop cartoonists from drawing Mohammad. Everyone can offend everyone else, but no one can stop another person from being offensive.

And this brings me to my final point: Some folks need to relax about this stuff. The construction of a single building does not mean the nationwide implementation of Sharia Law. History teaches us that bad things tend to happen when one ethnic group or nationality decides that another ethnic group or nationality is a monolithic, insidious horde hellbent on weakening its traditions and national character from within through both overt and covert means. Furthermore, such attitudes can give rise to unintended consequences, especially when a country decides to invade another country to simply give it "a 2-by-4 across the side of the head," even if that particular country had done nothing to attack the invading country.

As I said in the title of my post, reigniting the Crusades is probably not a very good idea.

*And yeah, I know that's not what the mosque builders are actually doing but let me play wingnut's advocate.

[Thanks to my pal Tintin for the art!]

Ugh. Why is it so difficult to find Democrats not eager to bow to the craven fear-mongering of Republican rivals? TPM:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has now spoken out on the Muslim community center in New York -- saying that while the organizers are free to construct the project, it should be moved somewhere else.

"The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else," said a statement from Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "If the Republicans are being sincere, they would help us pass this long overdue bill to help the first responders whose health and livelihoods have been devastated because of their bravery on 911, rather than continuing to block this much-needed legislation."

Fer cryin' out loud. Reid is running scared because of rival Sharron Angle's taunts that Reid is Obama's waterboy by the lizard brains who want to equate all Muslims with terrorism and 9/11.

"As the Majority Leader, Harry Reid is usually President Obama's mouthpiece in the U.S. Senate, and yet he remains silent on this issue. Reid has a responsibility to stand up and say no to the mosque at Ground Zero or once again side with President Obama---this time against the families of 9/11 victims. America is waiting."

And of course, he caves. Saying that they have a First Amendment right to build it isn't that revolutionary a stance to take. One would hope that the Majority Leader of the Senate has at least a cursory understanding of the Constitution (which is, by the way, more than we can say for Angle). But to say that they should move it is to play into the irrational hatred and bigotry of the lowest common denominator and something for which Reid should be wholly ashamed. Greg Sargent:

Despite Reid's reaffirmation of this right, his response is still weak and indefensible. And it leaves the President hanging after he took a big risk to do the right thing. Obama did not explicitly endorse the decision to build the center. But Obama did say that if the group does proceed with that decision, we must respect that decision, in accordance with American values.

Reid is not willing to say that. Rather, he's saying, in effect, that even if he supports the group's right to build the center, he's not willing to respect the decision to do so. That's unacceptable, and leaves Obama isolated at a very sensitive moment.

What's more, it's unclear why coming out against the plan in the manner Reid did is even good politics for Democrats at this point. Reid basically threw the whole Dem caucus under the bus: With the Senate leader at odds with the president, the media will press every Senate Dem to declare which side they're on.

Dumb, Harry. On every level. Even Republican advisers like Mark McKinnon think that pursuing this is a loser for Republicans. Why do you need to be a loser too?

Want to tell Harry that he needs to smarten up? Contact him here.

UPDATE: Haaretz is claiming that the Cordoba House has decided to move, something Cordoba House representatives are denying.

At tonight's White House dinner celebrating the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, President Obama gave his first remarks concerning the firestorm of controversy around the plan to build a mosque and community center near ground zero in New York City.

Before we all hear the ugly sound of birthers' heads exploding as they claim this proves he was born in Kenya, it's worth looking at his entire speech. It was an affirmation of one of the most fundamental rights we have in this country: the right to the freedom of religion and to worship (or not) as we please. It was also a courageous speech, given that 70% oppose any Muslim presence near Ground Zero. There was nothing political to be gained from it whatsoever, and everything ethical.

The full text of his speech follows:

Continue reading »

Watching the whole Ground zero racist uprising is just an extension of the tea party mentality. The nativist outlook has been with America for a long time, but FOX News expanded their makeup ten fold.

The Times report, however, descends into a kind of "liberal" media known-nothingism when it comes to how this became a controversy, suggesting that " a combination of arguable naïveté, public-relations missteps and a national political climate in which perhaps no preparation could have headed off controversy." This is a remarkable formula that manages to place the blame everywhere except where it belongs -- on a right-wing smear machine that went into overdrive in an effort to portray Rauf and Khan as terrorist sympathizers, an experience no one outside of contemporary partisan politics could have possibly been prepared for. The conservative media lied about the location of the project, they lied about Rauf's background, they lied about the project's funding, they lied about when the project would be built, and they lied about Rauf's political beliefs. And it would have been one thing if it had just been a small group of people lying, but they had an entire cable news station to lie for them, and politicians who were willing to amplify their smears. This controversy isn't about the "political climate." It's the fruit of a conscious, deliberate, and sustained effort.

is it too much to expect that a NY Times writer would actually investigate all the lies being told by the far right?

I don't know why, but I'm still shocked at how outwardly they show their racist beliefs though, but hey---with a media that is vastly underfunded and afraid to make waves and catering to this xenophobic hate group, it's going to happen more and more.

I'm sure that the intensity of emotion shared by some of the projects' opponents are sincere. But where they hold Muslims collectively responsible for the actions of a few extremists, they are mistaken, and where their feelings are the result of falsehoods spread by the conservative media, they are misguided, and where they believe the First Amendment does not extend to American Muslims, they are simply wrong.

The reason this became a national controversy is because Republicans see a political advantage in harnessing anti-Muslim sentiment, particularly if that forces Democrats to defend an unpopular minority group. Rauf and Khan are merely collateral damage in a larger political battle in which the rights of Muslims are forfeit as long as Republicans see some political interest in curtailing them or forcing their opponents to defend them. But just as no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, no Republican ever went broke underestimating the political cowardice of the Democratic Party.

So what we're left with is a largely uncontested notion that any observant Muslim is a potential national-security threat, a view that was once confined to the conspiratorial right-wing fringe but is now, thanks to Republican demagoguery, Democratic cowardice, and mainstream media know-nothingism, an entirely respectable, mainstream view. This isn't just a setback for religious tolerance and individual freedom; it's a setback for the fight against terrorism, which demands that the United States marginalize violent extremists, not embrace their narrative and worldview.

Until Republicans gain control of the White House once again, they will act our like racist pigs over and over again and will be helped along by the right wing smear machine and FOX News. Violence is on the way, people.

We've outlined a lot of this in our book "Over The Cliff," so grab a copy if you haven't so far.

Digby writes:

Normally I would think we could ride out this latest wave of nativism and racism, but there are two factors that make it more dangerous than usual. The first, of course, is the economy which looks like it's not going to recover smartly thus giving this impulse more oxygen than it might otherwise have. The second is that the right wing demagogues have an entire industry now devoted to creating and nurturing these wedge issues for political and financial gain. The culture warriors have just shifted their strategy away from "family values" to their other stand-by, "stop the boogeyman." It's all part of the same throwback tapestry, but different times require difference emphasis. We're officially in the "the foreigners and blacks are ruining everything" portion of the show.

The foreigners and Blacks are ruining everything portion of the show started the day Obama took office. It's been a long and drawn out ugly play. Hatred of the non-whites will only rise in the polls. Yes, America is digressing at a fast rate. Hey, it's making money for the Glenn Beck's and bagging huge ratings for FOX.

America has lots of problems, from fighting two wars to high unemployment to anemic economic growth. Our friends on the right, however, seem to think we don't have enough problems and are working like gangbusters to transform more than a billion people around the world into our sworn enemies. As the New York Times reports, the anti-Ground Zero Mosque hysteria has gone nationwide:

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.

In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.

In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.

Gee, it's funny how quickly the supposedly anti-government Tea Party wants the government to suppress peoples' right to freely express their religion, no? It's almost like they're selective in their outrages against state power! Whoda thunk it!

These local skirmishes make clear that there is now widespread debate about whether the best way to uphold America’s democratic values is to allow Muslims the same religious freedom enjoyed by other Americans, or to pull away the welcome mat from a faith seen as a singular threat.

The cool thing about wingnuttery is that it gets more extreme all the time. Repealing the Fourteenth Amendment is old hat at this point -- now it's time to repeal the First Amendment too! Do you think if more Muslims were gun owners they'd start a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment as well? Now that would be interesting to see!

But they have not gone unanswered. In each community, interfaith groups led by Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, rabbis and clergy members of other faiths have defended the mosques. Often, they have been slower to organize than the mosque opponents, but their numbers have usually been larger.

Well, it's nice to see that we haven't completely succumbed to stupidity in this country. As the Economist notes, one reason America has had fewer home-grown jihad a-holes over the years is because it's significantly more tolerant of immigrants than many European countries. But that could change if more Americans listen to the insane rantings of serial adulterer Newt Gingrich and former half-term governor Moose Eater:

Mr Gingrich also objects to the centre’s name. Imam Feisal says he chose “Cordoba” in recollection of a time when the rest of Europe had sunk into the Dark Ages but Muslims, Jews and Christians created an oasis of art, culture and science. Mr Gingrich sees only a “deliberate insult”, a reminder of a period when Muslim conquerors ruled Spain. Like Mr bin Laden, Mr Gingrich is apparently still relitigating the victories and defeats of religious wars fought in Europe and the Middle East centuries ago. He should rejoin the modern world, before he does real harm.

Newt, for the record, has always been totally insane, especially on matters of foreign policy. I'll never forget Gingrich's 2006 appearance on on Meet the Press, where Tim Russert asked him if having 130,000 of our troops stuck in Iraq had reduced our ability to deal effectively with Iran and North Korea. “Only in our minds,” Gingrich replied. Huzzah, let's invade everyone!

But seriously, of all the bad things the modern GOP stands for, I think its desire to reignite the Crusades may be the worst. I'm not sure what could possibly motivate such a desire, since the Crusades didn't go especially well for either the Europeans nor Muslim nations they invaded. Perhaps Newt thinks invading Iran will bring Jesus back to Earth, thus freeing him to be Raptured away while the rest of the world burns.

But even this doesn't make much sense, since the Bible has had some pretty bad things to say about adulterers. Maybe Newt thinks that the "it's-OK-if-you're-a-Republican" thing applies to the afterlife as well.

Or maybe he's just insane. Allah help us all.