GZM - 5: The mendacity of the opposition

At first Rachel Madow refused to cover the mis-labeled "ground zero mosque" on her news analysis show, because she said it was a "ginned up" controversy. But then, when Fox News kept escalating it, she felt she had to present the other side. Which she did, quite forcefully.

Frank Rick wrote about it in his New York Times column on Sunday, also calling the furor "ginned up."

The Republicans have found their wedge issue for the 2010 elections. Devoid of any new ideas that could get us out of the mess we've inherited from their previous time in power, they rely on some hot-button issue to rouse their troops and rev up the frenzy of hate.

In previous elections, it has been gay marriage or abortion. This time around it was illegal immigration -- until, miraculously, the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" was resurrected from the ash heap of non-concern.

The arguments for "hallowed ground" and "sensitivity to the feelings of the survivors" have been exposed and found wanting. Not that some victims' families wouldn't feel wounded all over again -- a few of them would. But many others, understanding the real purpose of the organizers, support the building of the Islamic community center which, if we take them at their word, is intended as a cultural center that will promote and increase the understanding of moderate Islam -- exactly what is needed.

Here's the deal that makes it so clearly a "ginned up" controversy: even conservative pundits were silent on the plans to build the center when it was first announced. Laura Ingraham of Fox News interviewed the wife of the project's organizer, and said to her, "I can't really find many people who have a problem with it. I like what you're doing." That was a conservative voice on FoxNews speaking. That was in December 2009.

Frank Rich wrote that the furor stirred up by FoxNews and the neocons (remember them, the champions for invading Iraq?) has rendered Gen. Petraeus' last ditch counterinsurgency push in Afghanistan inoperative.

"How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?" . . .

"The ginned up rage over the 'ground zero mosque' was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad -- a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated - but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season."

Rich went on to question the real motives of Republicans in Congress who have become so "concerned" about the offended feeling of those who actually live in New York, since all but 12 of them in the House voted against health benefits for the 9/11 responders just last month.

Indeed. This is the worst form of political grandstanding on a ginned up controversy that has just enough truth in it to grab the attention of the unthinking masses.

Plans for the project were announced in December 2009. Yet it wasn't until May 2010 that the outraged news stories began.

Now it has become, not only a wedge issue for the election, but it has become the focus of anti-American sentiments. The rantings of the right are giving the radical Islamic propagandists ammunition to claim that Americans are intolerant and want to destroy peace-loving moderates as well as terrorists.

This is not only sad and shameful. It is dangerous. We are just turning more and more young jihadists into radicals who will feel it is their mission to destroy us.

Ralph