Obama stumbles on Ground Zero mosque.pdf
Shared by: censhunay
-
Stats
- views:
- 1
- posted:
- 9/14/2011
- language:
- English
- pages:
- 1
Document Sample
V oices
Your Editorial Board Contact:
Many people, one voice Bill Koch
Ron Wallace Tina Reader Phone: (352) 365-8208
Gary Maitland CJ Risak FAX: (352) 365-1951
Bill Koch Don Hunsberger E-mail: billkoch@dailycommercial.com
Gene Packwood
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 The Daily Commercial A13
OUR VOICE
Mosque Dale
McFeatters
SHNS
controversy Gates says
needlessly he’s leaving
divisive Pentagon
I
f Plato was right that the
people best equipped to
P
erhaps because it's August, when off-
beat controversies grab the public handle power are those
imagination, but the issue of the pro- who don't seek it, Robert
posed Muslim community center in Lower Gates is the platonic ideal of
Manhattan has become needlessly divisive. a secretary of defense.
The critics — and polls show these After a career in the CIA
include a majority of Americans — believe and retiring as its director
that building a "mosque" only two blocks with the coming of the
from the site of the World Trade Center is a Clinton administration,
Gates became a dean at
needless affront to those who lost loved
Texas A&M University and
ones in the 9/11 attack by radical Muslim
ultimately its president, a
terrorists. job that by all accounts he
But it's important to remember in the enjoyed immensely. He
heat of the moment the distinction
President George W. Bush made at the time OT H E R V O I C E S turned down offers to return
to Washington in senior
between the religion of Islam as a whole, administration posts under
Obama stumbles on
with its many American adherents, and the President George W. Bush —
zealots of al-Qaeda who really do mean us as the first secretary of the
harm. Department of Homeland
Cordoba House, the building that the Security and as the first
New York Muslim community plans, is not director of national intelli-
Ground Zero mosque
a mosque in the purest sense but a 13-story gence.
community and cultural center with the Bush kept pressing, how-
space devoted to actual religious worship ever, and after Donald
only a part of the premises. Rumsfeld was fired as
And it is also instructive that Muslim defense secretary in 2006,
Friday prayers have been held for some time name of Islam. So a day after shak- Gates agreed to take his
T
he old axiom "don't sweat
now at the building the center will replace the small stuff" isn't always ing up the landscape and provid- place. It says something
with little discernible reaction. the best advice, particularly ing Republicans with another club about the regard in which
The issue seemed to be all over except for when applied to politics. It often with which to beat him about the he was held — and the
the demagoguery when city authorities is the little things that get one Dan K. head and shoulders, Obama met urgency in replacing the
unanimously removed the last hurdle to the into big trouble as President Thomasson reporters in Panama City, Fla., tempestuous Rumsfeld —
center's construction and New York Mayor Barack Obama is finding out. where he had gone to do penance that barely five weeks
Michael Bloomberg unequivocally endorsed For instance, after urging SHNS over the Gulf flap and denied he elapsed between his nomi-
the project as a critical test of America's Americans planning summer had meant to endorse the mosque nation and his swearing-in.
commitment to the constitutional principle away from the site of the worst site. The Senate approved him
escapes to head for the beaches of
of freedom of religion. foreign attack on American soil "I was not commenting and I 95-2.
the Gulf in support of those belea-
President Obama had been careful not to since Pearl Harbor. The presiden- will not comment on the wisdom Gates' calm, unflappable
guered by the nation's worst oil
get in the middle of what the White House spill, the Obamas spent their days tial intervention was even more of making the decision to put a demeanor concealed a
regarded as largely a local matter. But at a off elsewhere. Mrs. Obama even jarring because he had earlier stat- mosque there," he was quoted in tough, experienced bureau-
White House dinner marking the beginning went to Spain, setting off a minor ed the issue was a local matter and the national press. "I was com- crat in the best sense of the
of Ramadan, Obama said that Muslims have public relations furor, raising seri- should not be influenced by him. menting very specifically on the word. He had no hesitation
"the same right to practice their religion as ous questions about the political New York Mayor Michael right people have that dates back about firing or forcing into
sagacity of White House advisers Bloomberg had already said he to our founding." Well, you could retirement senior officers he
anyone else in this country" and that they
and ultimately forcing the royal would do nothing to try to pre- have fooled those Muslims in felt weren't measuring up.
had every right to build a place of worship
couple to briefly spend a day dip- vent the mosque from being locat- attendance at the earlier White He took on costly weapons
on private property as long as it meets local programs cherished by the
ping their toes in those troubled ed on that site. House ceremony that cheered his
laws. brass and defense contrac-
waters. Bloomberg, however, is probably words as bestowing the presiden-
That was all the Republicans — who seem tors, like the F-22 and the
But that gaffe pales in compari- serving his last term in office tial seal of approval.
to be intent on offending as many minority Army's Future Combat
son to the president's decision to while the president obviously Whether or not this "clarifica-
groups as possible — needed to denounce System.
needlessly step into the middle of plans to seek renewal of his White tion" of his position will do the
Obama as insensitive and out of touch with And he presided over two
the controversy over Muslim plans House lease for another four years trick is anyone's guess. But history
the American people, which you could surges — one in Iraq that
to build a mosque as part of a cul- beginning in 2012 and also faces shows that memories are long
argue, and, in New Gingrich's words, as the prospect of having to finish has allowed us to exit this
"pandering to Islamic terrorism," which is tural center in Manhattan near the when it comes to these emotional
site of Ground Zero where 2,752 this term in the uncomfortable matters and that like several other month; and another ongo-
beyond ridiculous. position of facing a much stronger ing in Afghanistan, presided
Obama only made matters worse when he lives ended because of Islamic reli- small instances of late the presi-
gious fanaticism. In a White Republican minority if not a dent has given his opponents over by Gen. David Petraeus,
tried to retrospectively nuance his remarks majority after November's elec- whom Gates persuaded to
in the face of the criticism. He was not House celebration of Ramadan, opportunity to reinforce their
tions. accusations that he is sometimes take a technical demotion to
endorsing or even commenting on the "wis- the president told American
In the considerable fallout over insensitive to the feelings of aver- take the Afghan job.
dom" of the decision to build the mosque Muslim leaders that in this nation
the mosque, it must suddenly age Americans. Gates had planned to
of unparalleled religious freedom,
but only broadly on Muslims' right to do so. have occurred to the White House leave his Pentagon post at
they had a constitutional right to Was he correct in his first state-
On Monday that had been further refined political team, albeit a trifle too the end of 2008, but incom-
build the mosque on private prop- ment? Absolutely! This country,
to Obama speaking out because he "had an late, that polls have been showing ing President Barack Obama
erty anywhere they chose. after a shaky start in that regard,
obligation as president" to do so. nearly 70 percent of Americans are persuaded him to stay, a rare
While correctly and righteously was founded on religious respect
Generally, August outbursts dissipate in on the other side in this issue, instance of a Cabinet secre-
extolling the principles of our free- and freedom. But there are times
the cooler air of September but this one bids tary staying on for a presi-
dom as set forth in the First that they consider it an affront to good sense and taste dictate that
to be with us through the election. But per- dent of another party.
Amendment, he seemed clearly to the innocents who died there at just because the right is there
haps after 2013, when the replacement One Gates announced his
be endorsing the idea of placing the hands of religious radicals who doesn't mean exercising it is
World Trade Center is dedicated and the intention to leave in
the worship center a stone's throw justified it, correctly or not, in the always the right thing to do. Obama's first term, and this
memorial complete, people will look back at
the Cordoba controversy and wonder what week, in an interview with
Foreign Policy magazine, he
all the fuss was about.
OUR VOICE said that would be sometime
in 2011, when we've com-
Iran readies mass graves for U.S. troops pleted the surge in
Afghanistan, the U.S. will
know whether its strategy is
The newspaper of choice for Lake While Iran's judicial system was Staff, said that the U.S. has a con- again for U.S. soldiers, and this is working and a scheduled
and Sumter counties since 1875 weighing whether to execute a tingency plan for a military strike the reason for digging this big assessment of the war will
mother of two by stoning or on Iran — not exactly a news number of graves." have been completed. "And
Letters hanging based on a coerced con- flash; the Pentagon has contin- In the event of a U.S. attack, it seems like somewhere
Letters are limited to 350 words on a single issue of fession, Tehran made another gency plans for everything — but Iran says it will strike U.S. bases in there in 2011 is a logical
public concern. They must be original, signed with loopy decision. In a fit of crazed that he thought an attack would the region and Israel and close the opportunity to hand off," he
the full name of the writer. Letters should be type- military hubris, the Republican be a bad idea. said.
Persian Gulf to shipping, precipi-
written and include the writer’s address and tele- Guard dug mass graves in the A Gen. Hossein Kan'ani Gates, 66, did not want to
desert to bury U.S. soldiers in the Moghadam, identified as deputy tating a global oil crisis. And the wait until 2012 because of
phone number for verification. Letters will be edited
for length, grammar and clarity. event of a U.S. invasion. commander of the Republican mass-graves stunt seems like the the difficulty in finding a
The existence of the graves and Guard during the Iran-Iraq war in Iranians are trying to taunt us replacement in an election
No open letters, form letters or copies of letters to
third parties will be published. Writers are limited to video of a long line of holes the 1980s, told the Associated into an attack. But if Iran wants to year. Let's hope the replace-
two letters per month. scooped out of the desert came to Press: "The mass graves that used be invaded, it will have to take a ment is as capable as Gates.
Letters may be e-mailed to: light after Adm. Mike Mullen, to be for burying Saddam's sol- number because we rather have We respect his desire to
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of diers have now been prepared our hands full at the moment. retire, but wish he wouldn't.
letters@dailycommercial.com
or by mail to:
Voices
P.O. Box 490007
D O O N E S B U RY
Leesburg, FL 34749-0007
Editorials
Editorials are the consensus opinion of the editorial
board, not any individual. They are written by the edi-
torial staff, but are not signed. Local editorials are pub-
lished Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Columns
Columns are the opinion of the writer whose byline
and picture appears with them. They do not neces-
sarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper and are
chosen to represent a diversity of views.
If you would like to submit a column on a local
issue for consideration, send a brief description of
the proposed topic to the Reader Views at our
office, or call 352-365-8250.
