@jedlewison Twitter
@jedlewison Twitter
The Jed Report is currently on extended hiatus. You can find my current posts at Daily Kos TV and at Daily Kos. Now that DKTV is up and running, I hope to resume posting here in 2010. — Jed
According to a new AP poll, about three times more people oppose the war in Afghanistan than think President Obama is a Muslim.
But that’s not big news, is it?
Last night on CNN, John King decided to ask Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy Graham and head of his father’s evangelist association, whether he harbored “any doubts about this president’s Christian faith.” The only thing worse than the question was the answer: Graham blamed President Obama for the growing misperception that he is a Muslim:
I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim. His father gave him an Islamic name. Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the Prophet Muhammad and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That’s what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn’t.
So I just have to believe the president is what he has said. But he — the confusion is, is because his father was a Muslim, he was born a Muslim. The Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs. That’s why Qaddafi calls him “my son”.
They see him as a Muslim but of course the president says he is a Christian and we just have to accept it as that.
Setting aside Graham’s peculiar view that being Muslim is an issue of DNA rather than faith (“seed of Islam”), three things jump out at me:
Last night, Keith Olbermann characterized the false belief that President Obama is a Muslim as the belief that the president is a “secret agent for another religion.” And when you listen to Franklin Graham’s words, you can see that it’s people like Graham — not President Obama — who are responsible for fostering that conspiracy theory.
Although Graham and his ilk are spreading disinformation such as the claim about renouncing Islam (which King failed to correct), they are not literally claiming that President Obama is a secret agent. In questioning his beliefs, however, they are trying to exploit the soft underbelly of faith — which is that faith by its very nature cannot be proven — for political gain. In the process, they aren’t just undermining President Obama. They are also undermining the power of faith.
Remember the Vitter aide who was put in charge of women’s issue after stabbing his ex-girlfriend? This story is about the same guy:
Taxpayers footed the bill when a former aide to Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter traveled to Louisiana on trips coinciding with court-related activities involving the aide’s most recent DWI arrest.
Vitter’s U.S. Senate office expense account records show two trips by Brent Furer from Washington, D.C., to Louisiana — one in 2007 and the other 2008.
The dates of the trips match times Furer was scheduled to make appearances related to his Dec. 28, 2004, arrest for driving while intoxicated and other related charges, according to Baton Rouge City Court records.
Vitter was asked in writing if he was aware of the circumstances and reasons Furer gave for the travel.
Vitter was not available for comment, said his spokesman Joel DiGrado on Wednesday afternoon.
DiGrado issued a prepared statement late Wednesday, saying that Vitter “certainly doesn’t condone any questionable timing of these trips.”
ABC elaborates:
The timing of the trips, paid by Vitter’s office accounts, has rekindled questions about the senator’s key aide just as Vitter is battling for reelection. Earlier this year, ABC News first reported on the history of legal troubles that had trailed Vitter’s aide, Brent Furer. His brushes with the law included a series of drunk driving arrests, a cocaine arrest, and an arrest for attacking a female friend in 2008.
In that instance, the woman alleged that Furer held her hostage for 90 minutes, smashed her phone so she couldn’t summon help, threatened to kill her, and cut her so seriously that she required stitches across her chin. Furer was found guilty on misdemeanor charges related to the altercation and permitted to return to work at Vitter’s Washington, D.C. senate office, where his portfolio continued to include women’s issues.
Vitter is facing a primary challenge from retired Republican State Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor. Traylor has raised Vitter’s usage of a prostitution ring, but has his own “values” problems: he currently lives with (and is engaged in a romantic relationship with) the estranged wife of his own son.
Politico’s Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman take a look at the Park51/Burlington Coat Factory Mosque from a perspective that has largely been ignored — whether the developers really have their act together to actually follow through on their proposal:
The Cordoba Initiative hasn’t begun fundraising yet 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.
The group also lacks even the most basic real estate essentials: no blueprint, architect, lobbyist or engineer — and now operates amid crushing negative publicity. The developers didn’t line up advance support for the project from other religious leaders in the city, who could have risen to their defense with the press.
The group’s spokesman, Oz Sultan, wouldn’t rule out developing the site with foreign money in an interview with POLITICO – but said the project’s goal is to rely on domestic funds. Currently, they have none of either.
“They are in the process of hiring an architect — but here’s the thing, you’re not going to get the architect or the engineer because they don’t want to be involved in this,” Sultan, the new media consultant hired to handle some of the project’s imaging — mostly via Twitter — told POLITICO.
There’s much more in the full article, which is worth a read, though I should add that I quarrel with its political framing, which is that President Obama, though his defense of religious liberty, hitched the Democratic Party to “an ill-planned, long-shot development project.”
What President Obama did was defend the right to build the community center and mosque. Against the backdrop of anti-Muslim bigotry from Republicans, President Obama defending basic Constitutional principles. He explicitly said that he was not addressing the wisdom of the development, but rather he was giving voice to the American value of religious freedom.
If it turns out that the developers of this project don’t really have the wherewithal to follow through on their plans (and $18,255 doesn’t make it sound like they do), that does not take anything away from the moral clarity of his comments.
If the project turns out to be as ill-fated as Smith and Haberman’s reporting suggests that it is, another way of looking at it is that Republicans rallied en masse to destroy something that never had a chance to begin with, and they did so using the ugliest anti-Muslim bigotry imaginable.
Whether or not this project comes to pass, President Obama and other principled defenders of religious liberty did the right thing — and the people who came out against the project merely to score political points did the cowardly thing.
Karl Rove, speaking on The O’Reilly Factor:
ROVE: The vast majority of the American people believe there is freedom of religion in our Constitution and that right of freedom of expression would be best exercised by not building it here. Look, in that same first amendment there’s a right to freedom of speech. Who believes that skinheads should show up at a Black sorority convention and scream bigoted remarks? Who believes there’s a right of freedom of assembly. Who believes Neo-Nazis should show up at the B’nai B’rith hotel and have their meeting in the next meeting room? There are rights everyone has that we think it’d be prudent to not exercise them at certain times.
If Karl Rove truly believes that American Muslims are just like neo-Nazis and skinheads, then perhaps he can explain why President Bush asked an imam to lead the post-9/11 service at the National Cathedral — and why just a few days later, President Bush proudly accepted a Koran from the same imam while proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace.
More likely, Rove doesn’t believe that American Muslims are as bad as neo-Nazis. Instead, he’s exploiting anti-Muslim bigotry for partisan political gain. And there’s a name for that kind of behavior: moral cowardice.
Howard Dean, interviewed by David Goodman, host of the New York-based 77WABC Radio’s “Goodman to Go” on wabcradio.com and a producer for The John Batchelor Show (audio provided by WABC):
Transcript:
GOODMAN: Governor, what’s your position on the controversy surrounding the mosque near Ground Zero?
DEAN: I’ve got to believe there has to be a compromise here. This isn’t about the rights of Muslims to have a worship…or Jews or Christians or anybody else to have a place to worship, or anyplace, or Ground Zero. This is something that we ought to be able to work out with people of good faith, and we have to understand that it is a real affront to people who lost their lives, including Muslims. That site doesn’t belong to any particular religion, it belongs to all Americans, and all faiths, so I think a good, reasonable compromise could be worked out without violating the principle that people ought to be able to worship as they see fit.
GOODMAN: You’re calling for a compromise, so are you calling for the mosque to be moved?
DEAN: Well, I think another site would be a better idea, again, but I’d look to do that with the cooperation of the people who are trying to build the mosque. I believe that the people who are trying to build the mosque are trying to do something that’s good, but there’s no point in starting off and trying to do something that’s good if it’s going to meet with an enormous resistance from a lot of folks.
This is a very difficult, delicate religious, and cultural issue. I think it’s great to have mosques in American cities. There’s a growing number of American Muslims. I think most of those Muslims are moderate and I hope that they’ll have an influence on Islam throughout the world because Islam is really back in the 12th century in some of these countries like Iran and Afghanistan where they are stoning people to death and that can be fixed, but the way it’s fixed is not by pushing Muslims away but by embracing them, and having them become just like every other American, Americans who happen to be Muslims.
So the way you do that is to integrate people into the fabric of the United States which is I think what this congregation wants to do. But I do think we ought to work out a compromise so that everybody is accommodated by this.
It’s certainly disappointing to see Dean inject himself into the debate in this fashion, particularly with an argument as flawed as the one he’s offering.
He’s trying to split the baby by saying that his problem isn’t with a mosque in particular, it’s that he doesn’t like the idea of putting any one religious institution at Ground Zero. Doing so, he says, “is a real affront to people who lost their lives” because “that site doesn’t belong to any particular religion, it belongs to all Americans, and all faiths.”
That line of reasoning fails miserably, however, when you consider that there already is a mosque in the same area and that there are at least three churches even closer to Ground Zero than the proposed Islamic community center and mosque, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, Trinity Church, and St. Paul’s Chapel.
Unless Dean is arguing that they have to move as well, what he’s saying just doesn’t make sense and represents a peculiar and unwarranted contribution to the debate.
Goodman told me that he reached out to Dean for the interview, which was conducted Wednesday afternoon. He says in addition to the discussion about the mosque, the interview also addressed other topics, including the midterm elections. Because this clip first surfaced on a video posted on Breitbart TV’s YouTube channel, there’s bound to be skepticism of whether it was edited or not, but Goodman told me that this portion of the interview was unedited.
(Update: Green Greenwald tells me that DFA vouches for the authenticity of the audio. Glenn’s thoughts on Dean’s disappointing comments are here. Update 2: Glenn wrote on his blog: “For those raising the issue that the tape of Dean was first released by Breitbart, and thus wondering whether it was distorted through editing, I emailed the Dean-affiliated Democracy for America, and received this reply from DFA official Charles Chamberlain: “It’s not edited. It real.” And just to bolster that: the website of WABC-77, the radio station on which Dean made these comments, has the same exact clip of Dean’s comments on its own site. So clearly the clip is authentic and unedited.”)
WABC is primarily a conservative format radio station, with a lineup that includes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin.
TPM’s Eric Kleefeld notes a new Siena poll of New York state showing that while state residents personally oppose construction of the Park51 (formerly Cordoba House) Islamic community center, they also support the right to build it by a whopping 64-percent to 28-percent margin.
A new Siena poll of New York state finds that registered voters here continue to oppose the construction of the Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York City — but at the same time, they overwhelmingly say that the Muslim group involved has the constitutional right to build it.
The poll asked: “Do you support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House, a 15 story Muslim Cultural Center in lower Manhattan 2 blocks from the site of the World Trade Center?” Here the top-line answer is 27% support to 63% opposed. As we’ve seen before, opposition is lower in New York City itself, where 36% support it and 56% are opposed.
A follow-up question asked: “Regardless of whether you personally support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House, do you believe the developers of the Cordoba House have a Constitutional right to proceed with the construction of the mosque and Muslim cultural center or not?” Here the answer is 64% yes, to only 28% no.
This is an important finding because it shows that there is overwhelming opposition to using government power to block development of the project, suggesting that Republicans may be overplaying their hand by turning this into a partisan political issue. Many Republicans say that they too support the right to develop the project, but that position is inconsistent with using their status as government officials to try to block it.
If they don’t believe that government should enact policies to block the project, then why are they trying to make it a campaign issue? That position is the equivalent of a candidate appearing at an Operation Rescue rally against abortion while simultaneously proclaiming support for Roe v. Wade — it doesn’t make any sense. Then again, these days, trying to make sense of Republicans is probably a mistake in itself.
PPP. 8/14-16. Likely voters. MoE 4.1%
Pat Toomey (R) 45
Joe Sestak (D) 36
Undecided 20
PPP polled the race in June, finding a dead-heat at 41 percent each. But this poll is the first using PPP’s likely voter model, and as a result, Toomey has jumped out ahead.
According to PPP’s Tom Jensen, Sestak’s biggest challenge is declining support for President Obama:
The biggest key to the race is probably Obama’s considerably fallen popularity. His approval rating stands at only 40% with 55% of voters disapproving of him, one of the biggest declines from 2008 performance we’ve seen for him anywhere in the country. Part of Obama’s low numbers is a reflection of the Republican trending voter pool in the state this year, but there are also more people who voted for Obama but disapprove of him now in Pennsylvania than there are most places. Our national poll last week found only 7% of Obama voters are now unhappy with the job he’s doing but in Pennsylvania the figure is 15%. Toomey has a 14 point lead with those disaffected Obama voters, showing the extent to which those voters moving away from Obama are moving away from the Democratic Party in general.
There is indeed almost a total correlation between how voters feel about Obama and how they’re planning to cast their ballots this fall. With those who approve of Obama, Sestak leads 75-6. But with those who disapprove Toomey’s ahead 74-8 and with that being the much larger group it gives him the overall lead.
Jensen points out that the Sestak is likely to be able to close at least some of the gap between himself and Toomey because undecided voters leaning Democratic voted for Obama by a 52-36 margin, but Sestak will have to do more than just win the undecided vote — he’ll need to pry away some of Toomey’s support. (To that end, Democrats are going after Toomey’s longstanding support for deregulation of financial instruments like derivatives that caused the economic meltdown.)
Aside from the poll’s numbers on approval for President Obama and on the Toomey-Sestak race, there’s a couple other pieces of tough news for Dems: 39 percent support health care reform compared to 54 percent who oppose it. In addition, Democratic voters don’t seem motivated to turn out: despite having a 1.2 million voter registration advantage among likely voters, 46 percent say they are Democrats and 44 percent say they are Republicans.
Despite the poll’s tough results for Sestak, it doesn’t appear that incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter would have done any better: 27 percent approve of his job performance compared with 57 percent who disapprove.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, yesterday:
There is no question that there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some, and I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded. How is this being ginned up, that here we are, talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country, and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City.
So because she got some questions she didn’t like at a press conference, we have to investigate the finances behind people who oppose the mosque? Are you kidding me?
I understand part of the impulse here, which is that in political campaigns, there ought to be transparency. But that transparency needs to be across the board — you can’t pick and choose who will be investigated. So to the extent that Pelosi would like there to be more information about how political campaigns are funded, then we ought to debate new policies that would apply to everybody — equally.
It’s also worth noting that there is already some public information available about mosque opponents. The first political ad that I’m aware of on this subject was produced by the National Republican Trust PAC — which is required to comply with public disclosure laws. You can see their funding sources at opensecrets.org.
There’s nothing wrong with combing through public records — that’s what they are there for, after all. But the notion that we should launch a special investigation into the funding of mosque opponents is wrongheaded and flies directly in the face of that other important clause of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Question for the anti-mosque activists in the GOP and the conservative movement: how close is too close?
The reason I ask is that there’s already a mosque within a few blocks of Ground Zero; it’s called Manhattan Masjid and it is four short blocks away from the site of the former World Trade Center.
Here’s a map showing the existing Manhattan Masjid and the proposed Cordoba House:
It’s only a few hundred feet from the current proposal, and just like the building in the current proposal, the street in front of this building was filled with dust and debris from the tragic events of 9/11, so it is physically connected to the attack.
Wyatt Cenac of The Daily Show visited the site earlier this month and Jon Stewart pointed out that it’s been around since before the World Trade Center was built.
So here’s the question for anti-mosquers:
I guess I have one last question for them: how many of you anti-mosque yokels even knew there already was a mosque in the same general area?
Okay, I’ll admit it.
I’m standing with Sarah Palin against the Burlington Coat Factory Mosque (BCFM), aka the Ground Zero Mosque, located two blocks from Ground Zero.
Now, I don’t want you to jump to conclusions. Please, hear me out. You’ll see that I’m right.
My problem with the BCFM is not that it’s two blocks from Ground Zero. It’s that it’s even closer — one short block — from the New York Dolls Gentleman’s Club (NSFW link).
Here’s a picture:
It’s not that I’m a bigot.
It’s just that I know that if the BCFM becomes reality, all the dancers at NY Dolls will end up being forced to wear burkas. And really, what good is a strip club if all the strippers are in burkas? Don’t you think Wall Street executives unwinding after hard morning’s work deserve to see some flesh if they pay for a lap dance? And that’s not even the biggest problem: if the dancer is in a burka, how will the customer really know it’s a woman underneath the cloth? This is one place where Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell just won’t cut it!
So please, stand with me. Stand with Sarah. Stand up with one voice and demand BCFM find another place to go. Your nation is counting on you.
Asked in a local TV interview about his views on the Burlington Coat Factory Mosque, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) delivers a textbook example of how Democrats can turn the mosque “issue” around on Republicans, dismissing it as a made-up controversy fueled by the likes of Karl Rove to divide America and distract from a discussion of the sorts of policies we need to strengthen the economy:
Partial transcript:
QUESTION: Are you for or against the mosque issue?
BROWN: Oh, I think it’s a local decision. We’re not at war with a religion, we’re at war with terrorism. And I thought it was interesting, the first clip on your news story is Karl Rove who is great at dividing the country and turning people against people. I mean, this and the Fourteenth Amendment and other issues — conservatives who simply want the president to fail are using issues like this, the Fourteenth Amendment, the mosque, to distract the public away from what we need to be doing — that’s passing a jobs bill, paying special focus on manufacturing. We in Ohio know how to make things, and we ought to have a real manufacturing policy in this country.
QUESTION: You talk about manufacturing, let’s turn to unemployment right now. You have fought for extending benefits to people unemployed for about two years now. While companies are posting profits, they are still cutting jobs, especially in manufacturing. The latest numbers show unemployment in Ohio is at 10.5%, but that’s down from 11% in March. You’re in Cleveland today for a couple of events related to jobs. Talk to us a bit about that.
Notice that while Brown directly answered the question — not just saying that he felt it was a local issue, but also saying that it was wrong to suggest Muslims are an enemy — he also avoided getting bogged down in the mosque issue by turning it around against Republicans, saying that their obsession with the mosque is evidence that they aren’t focused on the economy. As a result, Brown managed to spend almost the entire interview talking about his own views on jobs and the economy, communicating the message that he wanted to communicate instead of letting Republicans control the dialog.
Appropriately applied, it doesn’t take much political jujitsu to turn a perceived liability into an asset. Republicans can spend all their time talking about the mosque, but as long as Democrats remain focused on jobs and the economy, it will still be Democrats who are addressing the nation’s top priorities — no matter what Karl Rove may say.
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