Simmons begins by admirably acknowledging that many conservatives “are incredibly intelligent, compassionate and loving,” while “some of my liberal friends … suffer from delusion.” Then all pretense of fairness flies out the window, as he goes on to say that his conservative critics like Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart “have made their money on … the ability to distract their audiences from the real issue.” First, if I were a guy whose own wealth stemmed from the execrable phenomenon of gangster rap and something oxymoronically called “hip-hop fashion,” I wouldn’t criticize how others make their money. Second, distracting the audience from the real issues of the Ground Zero mosque is precisely what Simmons proceeds to do.
He insultingly suggests that conservative opponents of the Ground Zero mosque would like to see all Muslims deported, followed by all Jews, then all blacks. This is such a stupid and juvenile accusation that I will simply let it collapse under its own demagogic weight.
Then comes the predictable, who’s-the-real-terrorist moral inversion: Simmons claims that President Bush had visions from “his Christian God” to go to Iraq and kill 100,000 innocent Muslims (his emphasis). Ergo, al Qaeda may have killed 3,000 innocents, but Bush killed 100,000, for no reason other than that his Christian god told him to (the anti-American Left always conveniently omits the fact that we did not wage war on innocent Iraqis; their murderers were Muslim insurgents).
Simmons also claims that Obama came along to erase Bush’s “horrendous evil” by affirming that “we are after terrorists and not the beautiful faith of Islam.” This deceitfully omits the fact that Bush never missed an opportunity to make exactly the same point. It also ignores the fact that it is the Islamists themselves who started this holy war and who are happy to describe it as one.
Also predictably, Simmons pushes the insistent leftist line that the Ground Zero mosque is a religious liberty issue, though I have read approximately one million op-eds about the controversy and not a single critic of the mosque opposes it on those grounds. But framing the debate with that lie is not only all that the Left has to work with, but it also enables them to pretend to claim the high moral ground. Continue reading …
