Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11

This the title of a column in today's WSJ by one of my favorite columnists, Dorothy Rabinowitz. Among supporters of the location of the Islamic Mosque is New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg who states, "Ground Zero is a 'very appropriate place' for a (15 story) mosque. It 'tells the world' that in America, we have freedom of religion for everyone."

Rabinowitz writes, "Here was an idea we have been hearing more and more of lately--the need to show the world America's devotion to democracy and justice, also cited by the administration as a reason to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in NY City. Who is it, we can only wonder, that requires these proof? What occasions these regular brayings on the need to show the world the United States is a free nation?

Bloomberg and Cuomo resort to the pious battle cries, the claim that antagonists of the plan stand against religious freedom. Why have the builders insisted on building this 15 story mosque within 2 blocks of Ground Zero? It is an insistence that calls to mind the Flying Inmans, whose ostentatious prayers-apparently designed to call attention to themselves on a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix in November 2006-ended in a lawsuit. The inmans sued. The airlines lost.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser-devout Muslim, physician, former U.S. Nay Lt. Commander and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy-says there is every reason to investigate the center's funding under the circumstance. Of the mosque so near the site of the 0/11 attacks, he notes 'It will certainly be a seen as a victory for political Islam.'

The center may be built where planned (at least one lawsuit has been filled to stop it) but it will not be without consequences on the political intent on jamming the project down the public throat, in the name of principle. Liberal piety may have met its match in the raw memory of 9/11, and in citizens who have come to know pure demagoguery when they hear it. They have had, of late, plenty of practice."

Don't expect our current administration to come to the support of the the families of the victims of 9/11. He is too busy making "nice' to all the oppressive regimes in the world while they laugh at him behind his back.