Posted on 09/15/2010 2:06:40 PM PDT by sinanju
It's difficult to think of somebody who has done more harm to the causes he purports to represent than Feisal Abdul Rauf -- the so-called Ground Zero Imam.
He claims he wishes to improve the standing of Muslims in the United States, to build understanding between religions, and to enhance the reputation of America in the Muslim world. But in the weeks since he -- unintentionally, he says -- set off an international conflagration over his plans to build an Islamic center near the scene of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in New York, he has set back all three of his goals.
Still, there is another cause that has flourished during the controversy -- that of Feisal Abdul Rauf. Here he is on the Larry King show; there he is writing an op-ed in the New York Times; that's him, again, on ABC's This Week. On Monday morning, he addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (I listened in via conference call), offering many thoughts on what appears to be his favorite topic.
"Allow me, please, to begin by telling you my story," Rauf said, before delivering various self promotional tidbits to the audience...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This column could just as easily be titled "Buyers' Remorse". The dem/lib establishment and the MSM reflexively embraced Imam Rauf like Pavlov's Dogs. Now, upon closer examination, they belatedly realize what sketchy, marginal characters he and his business partners really are. Now he's become a Tar Baby and they are desperate to find some way of scraping him off. He is not going to make it easy. Like Reverend Wright, Rauf's clearly determined to enjoy the limelight for as long as it lasts; until either the media cuts him off or Barack and the Gang find some way of surreptitiously (Tides Foundation, anyone?) paying him to go away.
One thing is certain to me: Nobody is going to give him a hundred mil. No concrete-pourer or beam-jack in New York is going to work on that mosque. The "Muslim World" is clearly divided about him and--upon closer examination--the Rage Boy riots have proven less than world-shaking.
Perhaps we can read this piece as an official WaPo withdrawl of their endorsement?
The Democrats and their house organ, the Mainstream media, engaged in kneejerk politics rushing to his defense because he was being "hounded" by critics.
The "details" have been a matter of public record. The media refused to air them only now are they having their regrets.
I hope Feisal Abdul Rauf and Sharif El-Gamal are fast learners.
They now know a little about US politics.
They now know what Americans know——that once Obama came out FOR the mosque, Americans knew it would NEVER be built.
The problem is—once again—the Big Media no longer have the power to freeze out information they don’t approve of.
It all began with Newsweek trying to spike the Monica Lewinsky story and Matt Drudge picking it up.
Good point! And for that matter; if it is all that great, why can they only make converts at the point of a gun?!
Do any of these yahoos ever ask Mr. "Bridgebuilder" where the funding to build this moon cult monstrosity is coming from?
Followed by AP/CBS insisting that the Bush National Guard memos were authentic.
If I may take another bite of the apple; It gives me brain cramps to realize that many incarcerated men, especially blacks, “convert” to islam and wear the headgear and make a big show of it.
If I’m not mistaken, many of those “converts” are in the slammer for theft, robbery, and other forms of illegal taking. Has it EVER crossed ANY of their minds that if they were on the outside and under sharia law, those activities would cost them having one or more hands chopped off? Strikes me as stupidity gone-to-seed!
Considering the way Sharif al-Gamal has been dodging the cameras lately, I think he tired rather quickly of having to discuss his criminal record.
“Imam” Rauf still isn’t getting any embarrassing questions in any interviews but I don’t think that will last.
Once there are no more interviewers who will play by his rules his ride will be at an end. It’s quite possible Obama may even withdraw all his gummint “outreach” contracts and “Imam” Rauf will go back to being the small-time, store-front imam and back-alley slumlord he was prior to 9/11 when a desperate GWB knighted him as a go-to “moderate” Muslim leader and started showering him with outreach work.
Just watch. If he won’t take the hint and zip it, his political patronage is going to dry up overnight.
I think people were outraged and felt co-opted by his remarks.
He kept saying “our country” and “our national security”....as if he were one of us.
We know that he is a master manipulator and con artist-—plotting to establish Muslim triumphalism next to Ground Zero.
When he said GZ was NOT hallowed ground-—that’s when he cooked his Muslim goose.
Everyone EXCEPT Larry King and ABC’s This Week.
When Obama decided the 9/11 Mosque was no longer a local NYC issue the MSM went bonkers over him. When Rauf becomes a sufficient embarrassment the word will come down to drop his ass.
That said, Rauf’s fund-raising, its progress and its donors have been a closely guarded secret. But I’m betting that he’s considered too controversial and that Prince Alaweed and the rest of the zillionaire petro-sheiks have been keeping him at arm’s length. Unlike the dems and the MSM I doubt these guys give away their support without due diligence. I’m sure they took the time to find out what a small-time “all hat and no cattle” con man this guy really is.
Furthermore, I don’t think ANY big-time players—here or abroad—wants to be seen giving this guy money.
He will NEVER be able to build that mosque. He’s just going to ride the wave until his audience dries up.
Now, they probably would like to untangle themselves from Rauf and his victory mosque concept but he won't back down and they're afraid to oppose him at this late date, fearing he'll hit them with the ridiculous but inevitable charge of 'letting the terrorists, er, extremists win' BS. Rauf's moral equivalency between 'religions' having 'extremists' is annoying but the would-be Qur'an-burning preacher, Terry Jones, made that comparison practically inescapable, although I doubt Rauf could come up with comparable instances of modern-day Christians murdering innocent people in the name of their religion, as Muslims do, around the world, on a regular basis. But the media won't talk about that as it might be 'insensitive' to Muslims, blah, blah, blah.
That being the case, when the Washington Post starts criticizing Imam Rauf, you know the left wants out of the Ground Zero mosque controversy. A controversy that didn't have to happen but because it has, a metaphorical line in the sand has been drawn. The mosque will never be built but before long, the whole issue will likely fade from public view as the leftmedia back away from it - and Imam Rauf. Besides, I doubt he'll ever raise the 100 million and even if he did, no one will want to work on his victory mosque after all this brouhaha. At least, I hope not. I also hope that having roused normally complacent Americans, Muslim activists with grandiose schemes of imposing their 'religion' on the U.S. will realize that will never happen. As a nation, Americans are tolerant - but we aren't suicidal.
Certainly, the New York mosque controversy has gotten Rauf the amplified voice he seems to crave. But has it been worth stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment at home and anti-American feelings abroad?
"Is it worth all this firestorm?" the imam asked himself yesterday. "The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is a categorical yes."
So, what was Rauf's agenda all along? Testing the waters, as someone mentioned? Mere attention-seeking?
How many in the public and in leadership got the message that muslims are extremely thin-skinned, adept at playing the victim card, and hold the threat of violent protest over the heads of any who would stand in the way of their mission (jihad) to force their backward way of life (sharia) on this country and anywhere they wish??
They have become one of the whining minorities of this nation and will use our own system against us.
IMO, given the quotes from Rauf in the article, he has openly declared himself an enemy of the U.S. and should be deported. Let's see what that firestorm would be like!!
Seeing the Ground Zero mosque as part of the grand plan is giving our enemies too much credit. The NYPost and a few others have dug up enough about Imam Rauf and his partners-in-crime to prove this was a pair of real-estate con men who wanted to make a mint and a megalomaniac with his own agenda who signed on as their frontman. Not to mention their local political patrons in NYC and NJ.
They do deserve credit for correctly anticipating that the dem/lib establishment and the MSM and liberal tastemakers would fall all over themselves to lionize them and damn their enemies. What they could not have anticipated is the Talk Radio and alternative media-led nationwide backlash that would turn this into a major mess for all the respective perps. The MSM has found itself on the wrong side of a 70/30 issue and has humiliated itself and squandered it’s remaining moral authority by shrilly insulting and browbeating basically the entire U.S. of A. as a bunch of bigots and racists. Same for Obama and Bloomberg, how were they to know that this would be seen as the last straw? They certainly could not have anticipated that Rev. Terry Jones would throw gasoline on the issue and add (comparative) religious freedom and free speech issues to the mix.
Islamists here and across the world are now in full defensive whine mode as they see an America aroused against them and no longer afraid to hit back publicly. The MSM are so desperate they tried unsuccessfully to hype up a non-existent wave of muslim-bashing for a few days. That didn’t take and America did not go into a guilty cringe.
Now the entire liberal establishment just wants Rauf to shut up and go away but he’s having the time of his life capering and prancing on the world stage in his tailored outfits. This recent piece shows the MSM starting to turn on him but until they start asking him embarrassing questions and join FNC in exposing his shady associations and sketchy money-grubbing he is not about to clam up. As long as he can find pliant interviewers we will keep seeing and hearing him.
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