“It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” – Macbeth

AP ran an article entitled, “Rallies over mosque near ground zero get heated.” Probably what struck me is the line: “The dispute has sparked a national debate on religious freedom and American values and is becoming an issue on the campaign trail ahead of the midterm elections.”

Sounds like that’s a coincidence or something. It’s like the same thing with Climategate. The media is willingly blind to the timing of the fake controversies because it’s in their interest to make it look like a genuine controversy where both sides have to be given equal respect.

Turns out this was all for naught. The Islamic Center was just a fool’s dream. Politico broke the story that: “The Cordoba Initiative hasn’t yet begun fundraising for its $100 million goal. The group’s latest fundraising report with the state attorney general’s office, from 2008, shows exactly $18,255 — not enough even for a down payment on the half of the site the group has yet to purchase.

Politico says that it was unlikely that the Islamic Center was ever going to get cleared even disregarding the controversy simply because he did not engage in the kind of public reach out necessary to get sponsorship for this kind of project in New York and got bad legal advice that only delayed the situation:

The Cordoba Initiative’s entire political outreach, meanwhile, appears to have been a call to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer earlier this year, who suggested they visit Community Board 1 merely to measure support. The step was unnecessary — they can build on the site as of right — and was, in retrospect, a mistake.

The hearing gave the impression nationally that there was some kind of government approval required, when in fact that wasn’t the case. A subsequent New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing was forced by opponents trying to stop it.

The plan received support from a Community Board subcommittee, but the chair of the board, Julie Menin, advised El-Gamal to hold a larger town hall forum, where nuances could be addressed and broader groups heard from.

He never did.

The Politico article says that now that the controversy has turned opinion against them so fervently, the “long shot” to begin with is all but impossible.

Nevertheless, the imam actually thinks the publicity is actually a good thing. Maybe he figures it will help bring donations. If so, it could mean that the only reason this gym/pool/prayer area gets built is because of the huge opposition to it.

[Update: Turns out he was right and Politico was wrong. So I definitely shouldn’t have called it a “fool’s dream.” Guess I’m the fool for thinking a crappy publication like Politico would know what they’re talking about. As Bill Maher pointed out, no one on the right even noticed because if it isn’t on Fox News, it doesn’t exist.]

Fareed Zakaria made a good point about how ridiculous it is to think a Sufi Muslim would have anything to do with al Qaida, especially considering that al Qaida attacked a Sufi shrine in July killing 41 and injuring 175 more:

Why would al Qaeda attack a holy place at a time of prayer? Because it is a Sufi shrine, part of a sect that al Qaeda despises and regards as a deadly foe in the real battle it is fighting, the battle within Islam.

The Sufis are a sector of Islam originating in South Asia. They’re all about mysticism, love, brotherhood and devotion, with very little attention to dogma. They believe in saints, shrines, music, dance, and follow a very liberal interpretation of the Koran.

Sufi poets routinely extol the virtues of wine and song, both forbidden in the purer versions of Islam. Sufism has always believed in tolerance towards other people and religion, and in peace. You can see why al Qaeda views it as its mortal enemy. The more Muslims accept some version of Sufi Islam, the more dangerous for al Qaeda and its extreme jihadist philosophy.

A Forbes article points out that this controversy is only hurting our national security:

The potential damage to our national security is not only to our work abroad, but at home too. Today in America we are facing an increased threat of homegrown terrorism. While Bin Laden couldn’t find a single American-Muslim to be part of the 9/11 plot, today, thanks to mixture of poor (and even harmful) leadership within the American-Muslim community and failed strategies from our government in dealing with the threat, some young Muslims are finding themselves increasingly isolated and marginalized–and are becoming easy prey for radicals.

Newt Gingrich went on “Fox and Friends” and said, “We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor” when in fact there is a Shinto shrine around the corner.

I pointed out in the last post that Laura Ingraham changed her position about the imam after it became an issue. She’s not the only one. Glenn Beck, who has now called the center an “actual danger” and suggested it is an “Allah-tells-me-to-blow-up-America mosque,” sat at the same table with Rauf during a 2006 discussion on ABC’s Good Morning America, as Rauf condemned the extremists who issued death threats against the Pope and political cartoonists, and when Diane Sawyer mentioned that the radicals did not include Rauf, Beck seemed to agree, saying “sure, sure,” adding, “I believe it’s a small portion of Islam that is acting in these ways.” Beck even appeared to gesture to Rauf when he invoked the idea of “good Muslims.”

President Bush’s Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes promoted Rauf as an ambassador of Islamic faith in America under the Bush Administration but now says building the Islamic Center will allow terrorists to “celebrate its presence as a twisted victory over our society’s freedoms.”

Ron Paul, always choosing principle over popularity, said the controversy “is all about hate and Islamaphobia,” stoked by “neo-conservatives” who “never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars.”

Shots were even fired into Al Franken’s home! He and his family were not there at the time.

The New York Times tells how Democrats are upset that the controversy took the discussion away from their own fake controversy about Republicans somehow privatizing Social Security even while Obama has veto power.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided to join the “move the mosque” side, showing yet again how cowardly Democrats are in the face of negative polls.

As mentioned in the last post, Howard Dean decided to cash some political points of his own by offering to negotiate a “compromise” in which the Cordoba House is opened just a little further away from Ground Zero:

“My argument is simple. This center may be intended as a bridge or a healing gesture but it will not be perceived that way unless a dialogue with a real attempt to understand each other happens. That means the builders have to be willing to go beyond what is their right and be willing to talk about feelings whether the feelings are “justified” or not. No doubt the Republic will survive if this center is built on its current site or not. But I think this is a missed opportunity to try to have an open discussion about why this is a big deal, because it is a big deal to a lot of Americans who are not just right-wing politicians pushing the hate button again. I think those people need to be heard respectfully, whether they are right or whether they are wrong.”

I especially liked the response by Bryan from youaredumb.net:

Whether the feelings are justified is the whole point. Whether the feelings are right or whether they are wrong is the whole point. Where the feelings came from is the whole point. People are having these feelings BECAUSE the right-wing politicians are pushing the hate button again. If they hadn’t, nobody would have even known about these plans except a few locals at zoning meetings in Manhattan.

The feelings aren’t justified. The feelings aren’t right. They shouldn’t be heard respectfully, because you shouldn’t respect things that are unjustified and wrong. And you’re not just calling for those feelings to be heard – they’re being heard, believe me. They’re being broadcast and amplified and multiplied by the echo chamber until they’re completely inescapable.

No, you’re asking the victims of a ginned-up smear and hate campaign to capitulate to that campaign on the grounds that it worked. Everyone’s really upset now, so in the interests of not making people upset anymore, the upset people should get what they want – otherwise, we’ll be forced to assume that the builders aren’t willing to go far enough with their bridge or healing gesture. That’s completely fucking reprehensible, but it’s also typical.

I think Dean has inadvertently given me clarity on what’s been driving me batshit crazy about the Obama administration. It’s what they’d call “pragmatism”, and it goes a little something like this.

Newt Gingrich walks into the Oval Office. He drops his pants, and takes a huge, steaming shit on the carpet. He wipes his ass on the flag, pulls up his pants, and leaves. The reaction is instantaneous. Obama demands action. This shit must be cleaned up! We will do whatever it takes to remove this pile of feces from the carpet. So they bring in dustpans and steam cleaners and Febreze, and after about four hours, Newt’s dump is all but a memory.

The next day, after a hearty breakfast of bran muffins, coffee, and raw bacon, Newt comes in, and does the exact same thing. And this time, one of Obama’s advisors speaks up. “Sir, maybe we should lock the door, or tell Security to keep the former Speaker out of the building. Or get Gingrich back here to clean up his mess.”

But it doesn’t matter how the shit got on the floor. That’s looking backward. The shit is there now, and the important thing is that it goes away as quickly and as painlessly as possible. And so that happens, and the third day, Gingrich shits right into someone’s mouth, and all Rahm Emanuel is willing to do is suggest that Scope might be minty enough to help.

It’s pragmatic, it’s non-confrontational, and it’s even-handed. But it doesn’t do the one thing it needs to do – keep the shit off the rug in the first place. And until Howard Dean and the majority of the Democrats get this through their heads and start actually defending what’s right and justified against what’s unjustified and wrong, people are going to know exactly what that smell is, and what it means.

And finally, a segment on the Rachel Maddow Show explains where some of these conservative fake controversies originated from.

For example, the first person to start the “Obama is a Muslim” rumor was started by Andy Martin who is a serial litigant who filed hundreds if not thousands of lawsuits, mostly against judges who ruled against him in other lawsuits. He even went so far as to try to intervene in a judge’s divorce.

The Birther rumor was started by a Russian dentist/realtor/lawyer Orly Tatz, was also fined for a frivolous lawsuit.

As for the “Ground Zero Mosque”: This began with Stop the Islamization of America, headed by Pam Geller, a Birther who blogs on the Ayn Rand-themed blog “Atlas Shrugs.” She believes that Obama’s health care plan includes death panels, that there is a secret shadow government, that Obama is organizing a private youth army recruiting from high schools, and that Obama has everyone wear purple during some kind of political attack, making it Obama’s official “gansta color.”

Maddow’s stand-in points out that this same controversy was “conceived in the same crank workshop that churned out ‘Obama gang-colors’…”, and “…out of this workshop of insanity comes a position now being adopted by the Democratic Senate Majority Leader. Let’s just hope the Senate doesn’t decide to consider a bill banning the color purple.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5XlwrSUnCU[/youtube]