Obama's Catastrophic Error

President Obama's endorsement yesterday of the construction of the Ground Zero Jihad Mosque in New York, coupled with his attempts at a quick backtrack now less than twenty four hours later, represents a critical turning point in how Americans will view the Obama presidency.  Most Americans are too busy living their lives and working to earn money to pay their enormous tax burden to pay too much attention to what goes on in Washington, but the President's remarks at the White House Ramadan ceremony Friday night will be viewed by many Americans as just a little too friendly toward the faith of those who hate America.  Even more Americans will recognize the plain poor judgment and lack of perspective the President's remarks reveal.  Finally, Obama's attempts to backtrack today guarantee that the story will be magnified exponentially in the American consciousness, and also highlight the President's political cowardice in not standing up for his true beliefs.

It is absolutely true that Muslim citizens share the same freedoms of religion and association as Americans of other faiths.  However, as most of us learned in civics class, or at least through the living of life, just because one has the freedom to do certain things, not all things should be done.  Jihad apologists bandy the argument of American exceptionalism only now, claiming that because we are Americans we should allow the sacrilege of the building of the mosque, while on any other issue those same liberal elites reject any whiff of that very same exceptionalism.  Well I call foul!  It is not un-American to oppose the Ground Zero Mosque, no more so than it is to oppose the building of a Nazi Heritage Center at Auschwitz, or a Japanese Imperial Center at Pearl Harbor.  Civilized people act civilly.

To be sure, I'm not in favor of the "torts gone wild" mindset of today in which people claim harm for every perceived slight, but the circumstances here are clearly unique.  The attacks of 9/11 were one of the seminal events of my life and yours, properly awakening Americans to the Islamic jihad being waged against them.  Moreover, I do not accept the premise that the Ground Zero Mosque is being promoted by moderate Islamic interests, and this becomes clear with just a little research into the background of the project's front man, Feisal Abdul Rauf.  And this is no mere storefront meeting place, but a planned sixteen story tower.  For what possible purpose can such a megalith serve in this location?  I'm afraid we know all too well.  All of us except President "the Cambridge police acted stupidly" Obama and his ilk.  Why am I reminded of the oh so earnest nuclear freeze movements of the 1980s, which we learned in the 1990s were funded and directed by the Communists?

America, bless her quasi-isolationist heart, tends to, not forget, but to move on about her business of living life and creating prosperity, such that we sometimes lose our collective focus on some important things.  We don't want to be at war.  We don't want to argue about religion.  We don't want to conquer any territory.  We just want people to be left alone to live in freedom.  In our war weariness and our desire to move on America elected Barack Obama to the Presidency.  The consequences of that choice are becoming clearer to many Americans, and they don't like what they see.