Robinson appears frequently on MSNBC as a political analyst on shows such as Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball with Chris Matthews.
Posted on 08/23/2010 10:09:41 PM PDT by kcvl
The right-wing, blinded by its own hysteria
By Eugene Robinson Tuesday, August 24, 2010
When did the loudmouths of the American right become such a bunch of fraidy-cats and professional victims? Or is it all just an act?
The hysteria over plans for an innocuous Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan -- two blocks from Ground Zero, amid an urban hodgepodge of office buildings, eateries and strip clubs -- is wildly out of proportion. It would be laughable if it didn't threaten to do great harm to the global campaign against Islamic terrorism.
It is by now firmly established that the project, dubbed Park51, is promoted by a peacenik Muslim cleric whose sermons often sound a bit like the musings of new-age guru Deepak Chopra. It is also undisputed fact that the imam in question, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is such a moderate that the U.S. government regularly sends him as an emissary to Muslim countries to preach peace, coexistence and dialogue.
Yet right-wing commentators and politicians have twisted themselves in knots to portray the Park51 project as a grievous assault -- and "the American people" as victims. Victims of what? Rauf's sinister plot to despoil the city with a fitness center, a swimming pool and -- shudder -- a space for the performing arts?
Message to anyone who will listen: You're a victim. Be very afraid.
In the process, this anti-mosque pitchfork brigade is surely recruiting terrorists left and right. As Ahmad Moussalli, a professor at the American University of Beirut, told the Los Angeles Times: "Rejecting this has become like rejecting Islam itself." All the Islamophobic rhetoric tends to reinforce the jihadists' main argument, which is that the United States and the West seek to destroy the faith held dear by more than 1 billion souls.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
These people are clueless.
Good lord, I didn’t think there WERE people
this delusional!
Eugene Robinson: “project, dubbed Park51, is promoted by a peacenik Muslim cleric whose sermons often sound a bit like the musings of new-age guru”
******
Back in December 2001, Ed Bradley interviewed American Society for Muslim Advancement adviser Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Ed Bradley said, “Are you in any way suggesting we in the United States deserved what happened?” This is after 9/11.
RAUF: The United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened, because we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA!
Aaron Klein interviewed the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and he said, “Do you agree with the State Department’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization?”
RAUF: I’m not a politician. I try to avoid, uh, he issues of... Uh, the issue of the terrorism is a very complex...uh, question, and, um, I’m a bridge builder.
KLEIN: But... But I’m asking, though —
RAUF: Aaron? Aaron?
KLEIN: Is Hamas a terrorist organization?
RAUF: My work — my work — I’ve defined my work as bridge builder. Do not... I do not want to be placed, neither will be accept to be placed in a position of being put in a position where I am the target of one side or another.
******
FP: Pamela Geller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
I would like to talk you today about the discovery of more extreme and troubling statements that have come from the “moderate” Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. A new audio has surfaced. Tell us about it and when was it recorded.
Geller: Thanks Jamie, the audiotape, segments of which are available at AtlasShrugs.com, was recorded on July 12, 2005. It’s a speech Rauf gave at The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Australia. The speech reveals that he is not even close to being the “moderate” that the media always portrays him as being. This speech Rauf delivered contains numerous statements that belie his moderate image and raise serious questions about what the mega-mosque will really be standing for once it is up and running in lower Manhattan.
Like Osama bin Laden and other jihadis, Rauf blames America and sees America as more evil than the terrorists. Here is what he says about how the U.S. is worse than Al-Qaeda:
We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it.
We all know what a profoundly misleading statement this is. It is curious that Rauf makes no mention of the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilation and enslavement. Nor does he say anything about the recent slaughter by Muslims of Christians, Hindus, Jews, and non-believers in Indonesia, Thailand, Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, China. Rauf’s words manifest no candor, no willingness to admit that Muslims have ever done anything wrong. He shows none of the mutual respect and readiness to take responsibility that we might expect from someone with such a reputation as a “moderate.”
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/08/24/hate-speech-from-the-ground-zero-mosque-imam/
Oh man, my ribs are hurting I’m laughing so hard at this clown! Easily the most (unintentionally) hilarious piece I’ve read all year.
I’m starting to wonder if these guys are drinking sterno in their spare time, or something.
In the process, this anti-mosque pitchfork brigade is surely recruiting terrorists left and right. As Ahmad Moussalli, a professor at the American University of Beirut, told the Los Angeles Times: “Rejecting this has become like rejecting Islam itself.” All the Islamophobic rhetoric tends to reinforce the jihadists’ main argument, which is that the United States and the West seek to destroy the faith held dear by more than 1 billion souls.
Meanwhile Islam is hell bent on subjugating the west
as fast and as completely as possible, and we shouldn’t
speak out against it cause that would only cause more
terrorism? Crazed.
LOL! Eugene doesn't get it, or he chooses no to.
Feisal Abdul Rauf, is such a moderate that the U.S. government regularly sends him as an emissary to Muslim countries to preach peace, coexistence and dialogue.
Actually, he raising money from his terrorist buddies to build this terrorist recruiting center, all the while insulting the vast majority of Americans, who do not want this mosque built.
All thanks to 0bama and the Hillary Clinton State Department.
Message to anyone who will listen: You're a victim. Be very afraid.
No, I'm not afraid. I'm angry. And I'm not putting up with any more of this socialist nightmare that liberalism trying to ram down our collective throats.
0bama, the muslims, the DNC, RNC and the media can all go straight to Hell!!!
Eugene is one of the stupidest men alive.
The only thing twisted is this guy’s view of the facts. I think he’s demented.
This is cynthia mckinney level of stupidity, holy cow.
Robinson appears frequently on MSNBC as a political analyst on shows such as Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball with Chris Matthews.
BTW, just so we’re all clear...I’m laughing at Robinson’s histrionics and absolute cluelessnesss, not the the Ground Zero Mosque issue itself. Cuz there ain’t nothing funny about that.
And the left-wing is blinded by its own stupidity.
Wow...he really steps outside of the echo chamber...doesn't he? (rolling eyes)
WaPo’s Eugene Robinson: Obama Is On A ‘Winning Streak’
Eugene Robinson wrote the following Friday:
This is a radical break from journalistic convention, I realize, but today I’d like to give credit where it’s due — specifically, to President Obama. Quiet as it’s kept, he’s on a genuine winning streak.
Robinson then listed the following items by way of recent headlines:
•”Last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq”
•”General Motors to launch stock offering”
•”Gulf oil spill contained”
But here was the best one. In fact, it’s so good it requires a serious warning to remove all fluids, combustibles, and sharp objects from proximity to your computer:
And finally, “President wades into mosque controversy”: Yes, I’m serious. Supporting the mosque in Lower Manhattan didn’t score any political points. But Obama saw his duty to uphold the values of our Constitution and make clear that our fight is against the terrorists, not against Islam itself. Instead of doing what was popular, he did what was right.
He still hasn’t walked on water, though. What’s wrong with the man?
For instance, here are some recent headlines one would have to ignore to come to the conclusion Obama is on a winning streak:
•Jobless claims hit 500K, a nine-month high
•New jobs numbers: Bad for economy, worse for Democrats
•US unemployment figures increase fears of double-dip recession
•Critics say Obama’s message becoming ‘incoherent’
•If polls are any indication, GOP can expect big gains in the fall
•Even the Poor Are Abandoning Obama, According to Gallup Poll Data
•Obama Sees New Lows in Job Approval
•Obama Receives Low Marks in Economic Poll
•Poll: Majority now disapprove of Obama’s job performance
•1 in 5 Americans Thinks Obama Is Muslim
If this is what Robinson thinks is a winning streak, I can’t imagine what losing looks like to him.
Eugene Robinson, the Washington Post’s Post-Partisan
Eugene Robinson, the name-calling scourge of all critics of Obama who writes one of the anti-conservative columns at the Washington Post and serves the same function on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” has just provided another example of what post- — or in this case, Post- — partisanship looks like in Obama’s Washington.
According to the Post-partisan Robinson, Arizona’s embattled S.B. 1070 “amounts to a prescription for racial profiling on a scale not seen in this country since the days of Jim Crow laws in the South.” It is “anti-Latino” and “patently unconstitutional.” Those who support it are “xenophobes” and “demagogues … who delight in turning truth, justice and the American way into political liabilities.”
It appears as though the vituperative Mr. Robinson hasn’t gotten the message — stated by pre-presidential Obama on the Rick Warren show in 2008, repeated (with increasing shrillness, as it has turned out) ad nauseum during the campaign, and just recycled on “The View” this week — that “we can disagree without being disagreeable.”
As one can clearly see, there is never any shortage of political invective in Eugene Robinson columns, but there frequently is a severe fact shortage. In the column under review (“Immigration Helps Dems Long Term,” July 30), for example, he asserted that:
[a]side from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — a grandstanding publicity hound who already stages immigration raids for the television cameras — virtually all prominent law enforcement officials in the state opposed the law.
Really? Presumably, just to pick one example, the Arizona Police Association, which “represents nearly 9,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers in the state of Arizona” and strongly supports S.B. 1070, contains no “prominent law enforcement officials.” I guess not, since there couldn’t be any “prominent law enforcement officials” among its members, including:
Arizona Corrections Association
Arizona Highway Patrol Association
Arizona Police Officers Association
Avondale Police Association
Buckeye Police Association
Chandler Law Enforcement Association
City of Peoria Police Supervisors
Copper Corridor Police Association
Deputies Law Enforcement Association
Gilbert Police Leadership Association
Glendale Police Officers Association
Goodyear Police Officers Association
Mesa Police Association
Peoria Police Officers Association
Peoria Police Officers Association
Phoenix Law Enforcement Association
Surprise Police Employees Association
Tempe Officers Association
University and College Law Enforcement Association.
They're there all right. Fortunately they write articles for bankrupt newspapers, so nobody outside of FR ever reads them.
Do you share Robinson’s view that the brouhaha over Park51 is part of a larger pattern in which the far right stokes fear?
No = 18%
Yes = 82%
103 votes cast
Community Center?
I thought it was an islamic religious building...aka mosque.
I wish they’d make up their minds...
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