Since righties lie about everything else, there's not much chance they'll stop lying about the planned Muslim cultural center

Tireless priestess of the right-wing holy trinity of ignorance,

hatred, and fear: Yes, i

t's Princess Sarah the Refudiator.

by Ken

So here we are, back at the Islamic cultural center planned near Ground Zero. There are people for whom the campaign of lies on the subject serves a larger purpose of lies.

When you get right down to it, the right-wing "holy trinity" of ignorance, hatred, and fear, which once seemed merely a set of tactics toward its soul-deadened ideological goals, has become the ideology and the goal itself. And since the exaltation of ignorance, hatred, and fear has long since eclipsed, indeed obliterated, any consideration of decency or truth, it's futile to expect them to stop lying anytime soon.

But that's no excuse for backing down from calling them on their lies. Or calling their witting and unwitting coconspirators on their complicity.

In the new (Aug. 16) New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg has a nice "Comment" piece on the subject, called "Zero Grounds." Early on, he takes notes of Princess Sarah the Refudiator's twittered denunciation of "the Ground Zero mosque plan," and observes:

Ah, the “Ground Zero mosque.” Well, for a start, it won’t be at Ground Zero. It’ll be on Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site (from which it will not be visible), in a neighborhood ajumble with restaurants, shops (electronics, porn, you name it), churches, office cubes, and the rest of the New York mishmash. Park51, as it is to be called, will have a large Islamic “prayer room,” which presumably qualifies as a mosque. But the rest of the building will be devoted to classrooms, an auditorium, galleries, a restaurant, a memorial to the victims of September 11, 2001, and a swimming pool and gym. Its sponsors envision something like the 92nd Street Y -- a Y.M.I.A., you might say, open to all, including persons of the C. and H. persuasions.

Not that there's any reason why the simple concept of a mosque should strike such terror even in Americans' terror-craving hearts. But it does; the very word is sort of a multiple warhead of ignorance, hatred, and fear. Which probably explains why, notwithstanding that planned "prayer room," the planners of the cultural center have been careful to make it not a mosque.

Of course to the crusaders for ignorance, hatred, and fear, it doesn't seem to matter. And it's not just Princess Sarah throwing around the intentionally inflammatory terminology. The crusade has found allies, or at the very least gullible and willing coconspirators, throughout the Infotainment Newsmedia.

Inevitably, the proponents of ignorance, hatred, and terror preaching against the Muslim cultural center fall back on shadowy terrorist conspiracies. Are there any more pestilential breeding grounds for terrorism than their own churches and synagogues?

I think Rick Hertzberg puts a nice period to the matter in the conclusion of his piece:

Last Tuesday, after the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, in a unanimous vote, gave Park51 a green light, Mayor Michael Bloomberg celebrated the occasion with a speech that, in its gruff eloquence, will be remembered as a high point in his distinguished tenure. “We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors,” he said.

That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.

That should have been the end of it, but it isn’t. The midterm elections loom. Locally, partisanship—Republican partisanship, to be specific—trumps propinquity. The two leading Republican candidates for governor of New York have made the “Ground Zero mosque” an issue, urged on by Rudy Giuliani, the ex-mayor, and by George Pataki, the ex-governor. Nationally, opposition to Park51 is rapidly becoming a matter of Republican discipline and conservative orthodoxy. By the end of last week, John McCain had joined his former running mate’s chorus. (“Obviously my opinion is that I’m opposed to it.”)

In a famous letter—the one that holds that the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens”—George Washington offered a benediction:

May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

Lower Manhattan is a little short on vines and fig trees nowadays, though there are some excellent wine bars. Washington’s point remains. His letter was addressed to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island. But, as he knew, Muslims are Abraham’s children, too. By the McCain standard, George Washington was a three-time loser: as President, he lived in New York City; the nation’s capital bears his name; and, even by the standards of his time, he was an élitist. Nevertheless: he was right.

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