It should take no great genius to understand why most Americans, especially New Yorkers, strongly object to a radical Muslim Imam building a mosque just steps from the site of the former World Trade Center.

Yet if you listen to Democrats and their lap-dogs in the media, the outrage is either “anti-Muslim” bigotry or it has been “ginned up” by those who are “trying to make this a political issue.” One media talking head after another dutifully parroted the Democrat talking points, framing the issue as “hatred of all Muslims” and/or a “manufactured” controversy about “freedom of religion,” the implication being that the massive objection to the mosque cannot possibly be sincere – it must be the result of some conspiracy.

But Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck an even more sinister note. Sounding like a modern day version of Hitlers’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebels, she menacingly threatened to “investigate who is funding” the opposition to the mosque – in other words, “we are the government and we can come after you.” Note that Ms. Pelosi is completely uninterested in looking into the sources of the estimated $100 million that being funneled into the mosque itself.

This tactic is nothing new – Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, have a history of demonizing their opponents by miscasting their motives. If you object to millions of illegal aliens bankrupting our hospitals and prison facilities, why, you “hate immigrants.”

Don’t want the government to take over your health care? It simply MUST be because Obama is black (OK, half black) – never mind that “Hillary Care” was opposed just as strenuously.

Object to a Trillion dollar welfare state? Why, you hate poor people.

And on and on.

Obama, meanwhile, squandered an opportunity to show real leadership, and instead did what he has done most his life – he cowardly voted “present.” After essentially endorsing the building of the mosque when he was talking to a mostly Muslim group on Friday, he came out the next day and back-peddled, saying that he “would not comment” on the issue.

This whole controversy has nothing to do with “freedom of religion” – nobody denies the legal right of Muslims to build the mosque. There have been dozens of mosques built in New York, and no one let out a peep. The opposition to this particular project is grounded in its location. It is utterly insulting to all of those who lost loved ones in what was undeniably an attack by radical Muslim terrorists.

Besides, excuse me if I’m a bit suspicious of liberals suddenly interested in defending freedom of religion – for 40 years Democrats and their brown-shirts in the ACLU have been little more than a legal lynch mob, hysterically demanding the removal of any “offending” expression of religion they could find, from Nativity scenes to crosses on hillsides.

But, hey, why deal with the real issue when you can simply slander anyone who disagrees with you?

Or vote “present”….

John Caile

http://havegunwillvote.blogtownhall.com/