This morning’s Wall Street Journal editorial got a lot of things right.

But the editorialists didn’t take the implications of their key assertions about Feisal Abdul Rauf far enough, and because of that reached an inadequate conclusion:

So in the name of reducing religious tensions and reaching out to the Muslim world, Mr. Obama has managed to elevate the debate into a global spectacle and rile up everyone further. He has also tossed the issue into the center of an already hot election season.

… But the objection here is not about the right to religious free expression. It is about the prudence—and some would say effrontery—of seeking to build a symbol of Islamic faith at the doorstep of a site where terrorists invoking the name of Islam killed 3,000 Americans.

… other comments by Mr. Rauf that have been amplified in the tumult of recent weeks. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Rauf told CBS that “the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”

… Earlier this summer, asked whether he agreed with the State Department’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization, Mr. Rauf demurred. “I’m not a politician,” he said. “The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.” We don’t know the content of Mr. Rauf’s heart, but he would have done better to disarm the opposition if he were clearer in saying that terrorism is never justified.

Mr. Rauf also hasn’t been clear about the sources of the $100 million or so needed to build the Cordoba House project. If it truly wishes to become an Islamic cultural institution akin to the 92nd Street Y, Cordoba House needs to build the confidence of the public. Reports of money coming from Saudi charities or Gulf princes that also fund Wahabi madrassas around the world don’t inspire confidence in the mosque’s peaceful bona fides.

… Mr. Rauf’s insistence in building his mosque at Ground Zero reveals an obstinacy that suggests a desire to make a political, as much as a religious, statement. Other Manhattan sites were and are available for such a project.

As our colleague William McGurn has noted, Pope John Paul II once asked the Carmelite nuns to leave the convent they had established at Auschwitz. He did so out of respect for what that site represented to Jews around the world. It was an act of ecumenical good faith.

If Mr. Rauf truly wants to assist the cause of interfaith understanding, he’ll build Cordoba House somewhere else.

The problem here is simply that Rauf’s goal, and that of those who have thus far waved through the project despite the fact that the site involved had been originally targeted for historic preservation, IS “to make a political, as much as a religious, statement.” The political statement will be that the West is so-weak-willed that it will allow a facility whose clear intention once one looks behind the facade is to provide an in-your-face platform for promoting terror-sympathetic and terror-supporting views. The religious statement is that Islamofascism will triumph over Christianity-based Western civilization, and that those who wish to promote moderation and tolerance and reason within the Muslim faith can forget about it.

“Build it somewhere else” is an improvement, but as I argued last night in a comment, as long as Rauf and his cadre believe as they do, the argument really isn’t religious. Obama’s own words on Friday prove it:

(Obama’s) fundamental problem is his willful ignorance (or feigned ignorance), as demonstrated by these sentences from his speech:

“Our enemies respect no religious freedom. Al-Qaida’s cause is not Islam – it’s a gross distortion of Islam. These are not religious leaders – they’re terrorists who murder innocent men and women and children.”

If AQ’s cause is “not Islam,” it can be reasonably argued, given the terror-sympathetic and terror-supporting connections of Rauf with AQ (sympathy) and Hamas (appears to be more than that), that the Ground Zero Mosque’s true cause is what Obama describes as “not Islam.”

If it’s “not Islam” — and based on Rauf’s stated beliefs and Obama’s own words, it’s not — the argument is no longer about religion.

You don’t let a guy who told Ed Bradley three weeks after 9/11 that the U.S. was “an accessory to the crime” permission to build a “mosque” two blocks away from where the “crimes” (actually, “terrorist acts”) were committed.

You don’t give the same guy, who from all appearances is a fan of the “kill the Jews” hadith discussed in the post, permission to build a “mosque” two blocks away from Ground Zero.

You don’t give a guy who thinks that imposing anti-democratic and Dark Ages sharia law on the whole country would be a good thing permission to build a “mosque” two blocks away from Ground Zero.

We’re also forgetting that AQ killed soldiers and civilians at the Pentagon. Rauf in effect also told Ed Bradley that the U.S. was an accessory to that crime too.

… Therefore, by Obama’s own definition, Rauf is “not Islam.” He is a terror sympathizer who gives aid and comfort to, as Obama himself said, “terrorists who murder innocent men and women and children.” Rauf and his supporters around the world will rejoice if an in-your-face monument to the greatness of Islamofascism is built two blocks from Ground Zero.

Obama ought to man up, go to the exact words of his own speech, and make it clear that he can’t endorse the plan as long as people who are “not Islam” are involved in it.

As long as Rauf and his ilk are demonstrably “not Islam” — and they aren’t, by Obama’s definition — there is no suitable site for his mosque.

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UPDATE, 1:15 P.M.: From the UK Daily Mail:

He (Obama) spoke as Islamist group Hamas today backed the mosque plan.

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said Muslims ‘have to build everywhere’ so that followers can pray, just like Christians and Jews build their places of worship.

Al-Zahar spoke Sunday on ‘Aaron Klein Investigative Radio’ on WABC-AM in the U.S. He is a co-founder of Hamas and its chief on the Gaza Strip.

That’s perfect. Really.

Obama can say that now that a terrorist group that is “not Islam” and that Rauf would not condemn when given the opportunity has endorsed the project, it’s clear that the whole enterprise is “not Islam,” not a legitimate First Amendment-protected religious enterprise, and not presumptively protected by our Constitution. He can withdraw his support. Problem solved; he can even take credit for articulating the basis for its solution in his speech on Friday.

It’s really pretty simple. Too bad it seems he won’t do it.

Doctor Zero at Hot Air (“The New Abnormal”) makes a few large points about small business and employment (internal link was in original; bolds are mine):

Large businesses tend to be much more confident about long-term financial predictions than small ones. They’ve got highly skilled accountants on staff, and consultants on retainer. The little guy does not have the resources to see quite as far ahead. This naturally makes small businesses more nervous about uncontrollable forces which might increase costs in the near future. They can’t absorb cost increases as well as large corporations can.

… seated at the controls of America’s engine of job growth … (small businesses are) highly responsive to negative income and cost projections. This Administration has absolutely hammered the small businessman with enormous costs and mandates. Growing enough to cross the line that triggers the heaviest burdens of ObamaCare can swiftly obliterate a small business. Reckless deficit spending makes them nervous about monetary policy. Gigantic bills no one has read – or, in one especially shameful case, named – are packed with buzzing swarms of unintended consequences. It’s no coincidence that unemployment grew worse as the land mines strewn through the ObamaCare bill began detonating. Who knows what will come next? There are some blood-curdling sounds coming from the fetid swamp of that lame-duck session of Congress. …

… Every small business owner knows that his personal income turns him into a target for this Administration and Congress. Artillery is already incoming from the expiring Bush tax cuts. Why take risks, when the rewards will simply be confiscated by a ravenous government?

There is no reason for a sensible small businessman to do anything but dig in, protect his assets, and await less greedy, more competent leadership. The decision to reject the New Abnormal will be made at the ballot box, not in the boardroom. That’s why nobody is hiring right now. We all understand that we need to fire a bunch of people in Washington first.

That bunch of fired people in Washington needs to be large enough, or the hiring won’t resume. Two years of stalemate accompanied (hopefully) court rejection of some of the worst legislative excesses of the past 19 months would represent a significant uncertainty reduction — probably not enough to bring genuine prosperity, but at least an improvement.

You’ll note that the promises of “enormous costs and burdens,” as well as the clearly stated threats that personal income would turn into an administrative and Congressional target, began in earnest in June of 2008 after it was clear that Barack Obama had in essence secured the presidential nomination. Recently revised economic growth data indicates that many businesses, entrepreneurs and investors may have sensed the oncoming onslaught a month or so earlier. This time frame is also when the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy, which in July turned into the POR Recession As Normal People Define It, began. It’s not a coincidence.

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Here’s a bizarre example of something I criticized on Friday when it came from the Associated Press: “MSNBC’s Brzezinski Swoons Over Wacky Flight Attendant: ‘I Think I Love Him,’ ‘Dreams’ of Imitating Him.”

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TOTUS 1 and TOTUS 2 (Teleprompters Of The United States) accompanied President Obama down to Florida for his 27-hour Florida vacation. Or maybe it was Obama who accompanied them.

Well, it’s progress in a way that it was only two. In April of last year, it was twelve.

On second thought, maybe that’s bad news: The TOTUS unemployment rate is 83%.

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Last week, ARIFPOTUS (Accused Rapist and Impeached Former President Of The United States) Bill Clinton told a Pennsylvania reporter the following about the job offer Joe Sestak has repeatedly asserted he received from the administration to not run for the Keystone State’s U.S. Senate U.S. Senate seat against Arlen Specter: “I never tried to get him out of the race. … I’ve never even been accused of that.”

So who did? And why (of course, I know the answer) isn’t this being investigated by the Justice Department?

Also, a reminder: Joe Sestak is not off the hook. It’s not enough to tell the press that you got an apparently illegal job offer. You have to tell the authorities; if you don’t, you have committed the crime of misprision, which is subject to the penalties of a fine, imprisonment, or both.

I don’t believe Joe Sestak has gone to the authorities. He had a chance to say he did in this interview last week, and by not answering the question presented, gives the impression that he hasn’t:

(Interviewer Christopher) Freind: If this was a quid pro quo arrangement, (which by your words it would seem to be), that would be against the law….so Number 1, (if that is the case) do you let the White House get away with that crime, and Number 2, could your silence be construed as obstruction, of aiding and abetting?

Sestak: I don’t really care what Dick Durbin says….he’s the Establishment of Washington, D.C. I appreciate Dick Durbin. But I’ve already demonstrated that when the Establishment thinks it can dictate what’s right for Pennsylvanians….who have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs…I’m not going to let Washington or anyone else dictate what I’m going to speak about. …

… I answered this question honestly. Others have to stand up for their accountability and what their role is…”

FREIND: Do you think they (the White House) committed a crime?

SESTAK: I’ll let others decide that…

I’m taking Sestak’s rambling as an admission that he hasn’t gone to anyone in authority with the specifics. If I’m wrong, someone’s going to have to prove it.

Given all of this, it gets tiresome to be the one to state what should be obvious, because it will strangely be seen as controversial, which it’s really not: Absent contrary evidence, one must conclude that Joe Sestak’s own admissions coupled with his criminal failure to formally notify authorities make him objectively unfit to serve the people of Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate. The same cannot be said of Republican candidate Pat Toomey. In the Pennsylvania Senate race, no discussion of issues is even necessary. Toomey is qualified; Sestak is not. Anyone knowing the facts as they currently exist who nevertheless votes for Sestak is making an objectively immoral choice. Again noting that this is the case unless there is contrary evidence I’m not aware of, this is not arguable.

From Yamhill, Oregon:

Mon, 08/09/2010 – 9:56 am

Missy knows just what to do when something goes terribly wrong — run to a neighbor’s house for help.

That’s what the 11-year-old dachshund did Tuesday morning when her owner, Charlie Burdon, collapsed inside the house while she was outside. She scampered across the street to alert Charles Mitchell, who was working in his yard.

“You’re not supposed to be over here,” Mitchell scolded.

“I told Missy to go home, but she wouldn’t move,” he said. “She didn’t move until I started to follow her, and then she kept looking back to make sure I was coming.”

He realized something must be wrong, because Missy never left the yard on her own. She always stuck close to her owner.
The dachshund led Mitchell to the front door, sat down and started barking. Mitchell tried to rouse Burdon, knowing he was home alone, but didn’t get any response.

Fearing the worst, Mitchell went home to summon help.

Just as he reached his house, the phone rang. It was Burdon’s wife, Junia, who had just received a call at work from her brother in Eastern Oregon. He said something was wrong at home.

She called Mitchell as she took off for home.

It turned out that Burdon, who underwent open heart surgery shortly after his June retirement from the Yamhill-Carlton School District, had suffered an attack of vertigo. “The world started spinning,” he said.

Unable to walk, or even stand, he collapsed to the floor.

But he was still conscious, and he could hear Missy barking. He worried about his beloved pet being stuck outside alone.
He managed to dial what he thought was his wife’s number. It turned out to be that of his brother-in-law.

He immediately called Junia to warn her. Naturally, she assumed it was his heart.

Between Junia, Mitchell and, of course, Missy, Burdon soon had help. Police Chief Gordon Rise arrived with paramedics, and he was soon on his way to the hospital.

He was released later the same day, and is now doing well. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Memo to Alan Fram and Trevor Tompson of the Associated Press and two other writers who contributed to this report (“AP-GfK polls show Obama losing independents”): You should have taken the weekend off.

When I saw a shorter, earlier version of the referenced AP report this morning, it didn’t mention when AP’s polling arm AP-GfK Roper had done their work. When I went to the polling home page and found that the most recent entries were from June 9-14, I figured I’d come back later and give the group time to post fresh underlying details.

Little did I know that AP’s gaggle of writers were treating the June 9-14 “Poll Politics Topline” as fresh.

It gets worse. It turns out that Fram, Tompson et al wasted about 875 words on a report based on polling data that gave equal weights to results from mid-June, mid-May, and mid-April.

Considering the primary topic of discussion, independents’ take on the Obama presidency and performance of Congress, this AP report is laughably irrelevant — unless its primary purpose, especially given that earlier versions of the story didn’t identify when the polling took place, was to present data that making readers and listeners think that things are better than they really are right now, i.e., in mid-August and not mid-April, for Democrats heading into the midterm elections.

Here are selected paragraph from the bylined AP pair’s non-punctual piece:

Independents who embraced President Barack Obama’s call for change in 2008 are ready for a shift again, and that’s worrisome news for Democrats.

Only 32 percent of those citing no allegiance to either major party say they want Democrats to keep control of Congress in this November’s elections, according to combined results of recent Associated Press-GfK polls. That’s way down from the 52 percent of independents who backed Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain two years ago, and the 49 percent to 41 percent edge by which they preferred Democratic candidates for the House in that election, according to exit polls of voters.

Independents voice especially strong concerns about the economy, with 9 in 10 calling it a top problem and no other issue coming close, the analysis of the AP-GfK polls shows. While Democrats and Republicans rank the economy the No. 1 problem in similar numbers, they are nearly as worried about their No. 2 issues, health care for Democrats and terrorism for Republicans.

Ominously for Democrats, independents trust Republicans more on the economy by a modest but telling 42 percent to 36 percent. That’s bad news for the party that controls the White House and Congress at a time of near 10 percent unemployment and the slow economic recovery.

… Both parties court independents for obvious reasons. Besides their sheer number – 4 in 10 describe themselves as independents in combined AP-GfK polling for April, May and June – they are a crucial swing group.

To try winning them over, Republicans say they will contrast Obama’s campaign promises of change with the huge spending programs he’s approved. Democrats say they will warn independents that a GOP victory will revive that party’s efforts to cut taxes for the rich and transform Social Security into risky private investment accounts.

… Independents trust Republicans far more than Democrats for handling national security, but give Democrats a 42 percent to 36 percent edge for dealing with health care – a potential sign that distrust over Obama’s signature issue is receding.

Hope is not lost for Democrats.

The AP-GfK polls show a narrow 44 percent to 41 percent overall preference for a Democratic Congress. The party is holding its 2008 edge among women and urban residents, and still splitting the vote of pivotal suburbanites and people earning $50,000 to $100,000.

Let’s look at just a few relatively current data points from elsewhere relating to the Fram’s and Tompson’s topics:

• Trust on health care — The antiquated AP-GfK report cites a 49-39 average Democratic edge among all voters across April, May and June (at Page 26 of detailed report; not in AP’s story). A Rasmussen report based on late June polling data shows Republicans with a 51-40 edge. Even that was six weeks ago. Since then we have learned that Team Obama is arguing in court that ObamaCare’s health insurance purchase mandate is a tax after telling the country for months before the legislation’s passage that it wasn’t. There have also been instances where abortion coverage was found in high-risk pool plans in several states, which were only eliminated when the Department of Health and Human Services issued regulations doing so. This exercise proved, as if proof was really needed, that the pro-life Executive Order that supposedly won over the Stupak Stooges — er, the Stupak Six — was nothing but a charade.
• Trust on the economy — AP-GfK shows a 45-42 average Democratic advantage (again at Page 26 of detailed report). The same Rasmussen report noted previously is 48-39, advantage GOP. Given the wave of weak economic news in the past six weeks, it would be not surprising to see that the Republican advantage here has increased since then.
• Preference in who controls Congress — AP-GfK cites a 44-41 Democratic edge. This question has been a virtual dead heat in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll all year. The latest result based on August 5-9 polling showing a one-point Democratic lead.

No AP poll would be complete without a bit of cooking. In this instance, the AP-GfK poll’s average Democratic ingredient outweighed the GOP’s by 44%-40%. Gallup’s most recent poll on the topic, admittedly a reversal from most of its results during the past several months, shows the GOP with a 2% edge in party affiliation, including “leaners.”

It appears that AP-GfK polls on the topics presented every month. It would thus be reasonable to assume that it has data for July, and that in a few days it will have data for August. Thus, it’s odd that the wire service wouldn’t have simply waited a few days to give us fresher information. Or maybe someone has seen that info, and would prefer not to have to report it at all.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Yep:

Obamanomics has done more than just keep unemployment high during a modest recovery. It may also be keeping high joblessness permanent by raising the costs to businesses of hiring new workers.

… Obama’s New America (is) … a government-run economy, with special benefits for unions and plenty of government jobs, but few private ones.

Businesses today face rising burdens — from ObamaCare, the financial overhaul, the expiration of tax cuts for entrepreneurs, the threat of new energy taxes or the surge in growth strangling regulations on business — that discourage hiring.

“The real threat to a robust recovery on the labor side,” Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, warned recently, “has come from employer and entrepreneurial fears that once the economic environment improves, a Democratic Congress and administration will pass pro-union and other pro-worker legislation that will raise the cost of doing business and cut profits.”

It’s never been costlier to hire and keep a worker employed. And as ObamaCare kicks in and Bush’s tax cuts expire — not to mention the huge tax hikes that will be needed to make Social Security and Medicare solvent — businesses will simply quit hiring.

Becker’s statement is in bold because it rings true. In Ohio a while back, Ted Strickland and Ohio’s unions and leftists wanted to put a mandatory employee-leave law on the ballot, but decided not to — not because it’s a lousy idea that would make the Buckeye State even less competitive than it already is, but only because the economy was so bad that they knew it wouldn’t fly. If the economy recovers, and as long as Democrats have significant power in the state, they’ll be back. The “employer and entrepreneurial fears” Becker has cited are real, and justified.

It can’t be emphasized enough that during the 1930s, the last time all-stimulus, all-the-time, Big Labor-Big Government-Big Company approach to things was chosen, the unemployment rate never fell below 12%, while Europe’s was never above that. Except that the figure might be a still completely unacceptable 8% or 9% instead of 12%, what reason is there to expect that things will be any different this time if the administration doesn’t change course?

Via PJM’s Madeline Brooks (links are in original):

… Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf seems to have an irresistible attraction to extremists and terrorists, in spite of frequent declarations that he is a peacemaker and a “bridge builder.” He has stated that the Islamic community center and grand mosque he wants to build would be “about promoting integration, tolerance of difference, and community cohesion through arts and culture.”

So what was he doing at a 2007 conference in Indonesia of an international terrorist group seeking a global caliphate?

Hizb-ut Tahrir al Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) … is a dangerous group. It is alleged to have attempted coups in Jordan, Syria and Egypt, which were defeated, fortunately. As we see in these photos, Rauf looks quite relaxed and happy at the Hizb-ut Tahrir conference, as do the other participants with him. In fact, there is a feeling of celebration in these photos. The language in the text accompanying the photos is Malay. Although the conference was held in Indonesia, there were many Malaysians attending, including Rauf, who has lived for a great part of his life in Malaysia. An English language website promoting the caliphate states that 100,000 people attended the conference.

Hizb-ut Tahrir is similar ideologically to the Muslim Brotherhood. Both seek worldwide Islamic supremacy and the imposition of Islamic law to replace the Constitution and democracy. But Hizb-ut Tahrir differs by also espousing Marxist-Leninist methodology, and is entirely open about its ambition to dominate the world, unlike the more discreet Muslim Brotherhood.

… What would life be like for Jews living in the caliphate? Well, there probably wouldn’t be many left after a while — Hizb-ut Tahrir’s anti-Semitism is predictably strong. Ata Abu-Rishta, the international head of Hizb-ut Tahrir, is said to have “whipped the 100,000-strong crowd” at the August 2007 annual conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, “into a frenzy … by calling for a war on Jews.” Rishta has also declared that it is “permissible” to kill Jews in Israel, and by extension, everywhere: “There can be no peaceful relations with the Jews: this is prohibited by Islamic law.”

Hizb-ut Tahrir posted an article on its website in 2000 citing a well-known hadith calling for the wholesale murder of Jews: “The stones and trees will say: O Muslim, O Slave of Allah. Here is a Jew behind me so come and kill him.”

Longtime readers of this blog might recall a certain imam who was selected in the fall of 2007 to run a mosque in Cleveland abandoning his appointment and leaving town with his tail between his legs after he was exposed as having sermonized on the aforementioned hadith at his former post in Omaha (posts are here, here, here, here, and here).

Oh (thanks to Patrick Poole for the original reference), I forgot to mention that the aforementioned hadith is in Article Seven of the 1988 Hamas Covenant, and that carrying it out is “the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take.”

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Back to Ms. Brooks:

… The literature of Hizb ut-Tahrir cites the Koran to validate using terrorism to spread Islam. They see Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Jama’ah Islamiyah as legitimate Islamic movements, not as terrorists. This may explain why Rauf refused to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization on Aaron Klein’s radio show on June 20, 2010.

There’s much more at the PJM link.

It is not possible for Muslims like Rauf who won’t renounce the clear meaning of the hadith or who won’t repudiate an organization whose very mission is to carry out the hadith’s intention to legitimately claim to be “moderate” or interested in “dialog.”

Anyone who doesn’t see the Ground Zero Mosque as an in-your-face to the United States in particular, and to Western civilization and the non-Muslim world in general, either doesn’t have his eyes open or is genuinely sympathetic with the expressed outlook of the Ground Zero Mosque’s mastermind and his circle of associations.

Which is it, Mr. Obama?

From Dallas/Fort Worth:

05:04 PM CDT on Thursday, August 12, 2010

A planeload of troops returning from war duty got a special treat this week: A personal welcome home from the former commander-in-chief.

Former President George W. Bush and wife Laura greeted the troops when they disembarked Wednesday at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

The visit was part of an event put on by the Super Bowl host committee’s SLANT 45 education and community service initiative. The former president and first lady are honorary committee co-chairs, staying mostly behind the scenes.

The Bushes, however, were hands-on participants on Wednesday, meeting the Collin County Patriots youth football team at the airport to help the Welcome Home a Hero program greet troops.

Diane Ratley, a Flower Mound resident who regularly volunteers to welcome troops, said Bush greeted and had his picture taken with each of the roughly 120-145 troops as they came down the greeting line.

“That was wonderful to watch,” Ratley said. “Numerous soldiers stopped and saluted President Bush and he saluted them in return. They were all just thrilled to get to shake his hand.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Imagine that.

That also means he supports these guys:

These guys are:

• Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the person spearheading the Ground Zero Mosque, who told Ed Bradley of CBS’s 60 Minutes a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks that “United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”
• Dr. Mohammed Javad Larijani, who “was the Iranian representative who defended Iran’s abysmal human rights record before the UN Human Rights Council in February and June of this year. Among other things, Larijani told the Council: ‘Torture is one thing and punishment is another thing. … This is a conceptual dispute. Some forms of these punishments should not be considered torture according to our law.’ By which he meant flogging, amputation, stoning, and the criminalization of homosexuality, which are all part of Iranian legal standards.”
• HE Sada Cumber, who “is U.S. representative to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Sada Cumber. The meeting was part of the Initiative’s so-called ‘Shariah Index Project,’ a plan to rank and measure the ‘Islamicity’ of a state or ‘how well … nations comply in practice with this Islamic legal benchmark of an Islamic State.’”

As to Mr. Cumber’s “Islamicity” ranking, on a 1 to 10 scale, does Iran get a ranking of 9 burqas, or 10? And yes, it was stupid of the Bush State Department to have such a person on board.

The administration hasn’t just ramped up its moral support for the Ground Zero Mosque. It’s also providing financial support (bold is mine):

The State Department is sending Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf – the mastermind of the Ground Zero Mosque – on a trip through the Middle East to foster “greater understanding” about Islam and Muslim communities in the United States. However, important questions are being raised about whether this is simply a taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt to underwrite his reviled project, which is moving ahead in Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Rauf is scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, the usual stops for Gulf-based fundraising. The State Department defends the five-country tour saying that Mr. Rauf is “a distinguished Muslim cleric,” but surely the government could find another such figure in the United States who is not seeking millions of dollars to fund a construction project that has so strongly divided America.

By funding the trip so soon after New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission gave the go-ahead to demolish the building on the proposed mosque site, the State Department is creating the appearance that the U.S. government is facilitating the construction of this shameful structure. It gives Mr. Rauf not only access but imprimatur to gather up foreign cash. And because Mr. Rauf has refused to reveal how he plans to finance his costly venture, the American public is left with the impression it will be a wholly foreign enterprise. This contradicts the argument that a mosque is needed in that part of New York City to provide services for a burgeoning Muslim population. If so many people need the mosque so badly, presumably they could figure out a way to pay for it themselves.

On June 26, 2008, during the presidential campaign, I documented how Barack Obama and people around him or associated with him already had a number of “terror-supporting and/or terror-sympathetic relationships you can believe in.”

Now that he’s president, his State Department has further enhanced and added to such relationships.

Told ya.

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UPDATE, 6:30 p.m.: Here are some terror-supporting and/or terror-sympathetic dinner guests you can believe in, via Frank Gaffney at Big Peace –

At a White House celebration of Ramadan tonight in the company of representatives of several of the Nation’s most prominent Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, President Obama announced his strong support for one of their most immediate objectives: the construction of a mega-mosque and “cultural center” at Ground Zero.

… As the AP reported (“Obama makes clear support for ground zero mosque”), “President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully endorsed building a mosque near Ground Zero saying the country’s founding principles demanded no less. ‘As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,’ Obama said, weighing in for the first time on a controversy that has riven New York and the nation. ‘That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.’

… As notable as what the President said is the company he keeps. Consider a few examples from this year’s Iftar dinner guest list:

Ingrid Mattson heads the largest Muslim Brotherhood front in the country, the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in the biggest terrorism financing trial in the nation’s history and was identified as a Brotherhood “associated or friendly” group in documents introduced as evidence uncontested in that Holy Land Foundation prosecution. Ms. Mattson now presides over the selection, training and certification of Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military and prison system – interestingly, a job formerly in the hands of Muslim Brother Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder and first head of the American Muslim Council, who is currently serving a 23-year sentence on terrorism charges.

Salam Al-Marayati is president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). In 1999, then-House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt withdrew his nomination of Al-Marayati to a leadership position on the National Commission on Terrorism when it became public that Al-Marayati claimed that the terrorist group, Hezbollah, was a legitimate organization and has the right to attack the Israeli Army.

Dalia Mogahed runs the insidious Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and advises President Obama on Muslim affairs as a member of the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. In an October 2009 interview with the London Telegraph, she made the following astounding assertions: “I think the reason so many women support shariah is because they have a very different understanding of shariah than the common perception in Western media.” “The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with shariah compliance.” “The portrayal of shariah has been oversimplified in many cases.”

Hate to have to scold ya, but I told ya.

UPDATE 2, 9:55 p.m.: Claudia Rossett, who is a must-follow for developments in this story — “Seriously, Where Is Imam Feisal … and What’s with His Web Site?”

UPDATE 3, 10:00 p.m.: Obama’s trying some kind of non-walkback walkback –

The White House on Saturday struggled to tamp down the controversy over President Barack Obama’s statements about a mosque near Ground Zero — insisting Obama wasn’t backing off remarks Friday night where he offered support for a project that has infuriated some families whose loved ones died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

… Obama’s comments Friday night — at an Iftar dinner at the White House marking the start of Ramadan — were widely reported as offering support for the specific mosque project in question near Ground Zero.

But on Saturday, Obama seemed to contradict himself, telling reporters at one point, “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about. And I think it’s very important as difficult as some of these issues are that we stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.”

Team Obama is figuring out something I’ve learned in the past week or so by being out in various venues: People who are ordinarily apolitical and who don’t follow the news all that closely have learned of and are very disturbed and angry about the Ground Zero Mosque — even those who instinctively lean somewhat to the left. What’s more, it seems that most of the folks who feel this way aren’t even aware of the most damning aspects of the story (Rauf’s statements and positions, undisclosed funding, etc.).

On this one, they’ve stepped in it bigtime — but again, it’s fundamentally because of Obama’s “terror-supporting and/or terror-sympathetic relationships you can believe in.”

UPDATE 4, 10:55 p.m.: Sometimes you just have to shake your head and marvel at the lengths to which the establishment press will go to try to cover for this guy as it sends its credibility straight into the toilet –

President Barack Obama told CNN Saturday that in defending the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque near ground zero in a speech on Friday night, he was “not commenting on the wisdom” of the project.

I guess that’s why the report from the AP’s Erica Werner on Saturday morning was headlined: “Obama makes clear support for ground zero mosque,” why her missive told us that “Obama elevated it to a presidential issue Friday without equivocation,” and why a related New York Times headline read “Obama Strongly Backs Islam Center Near 9/11 Site,” and why the Times’s underlying story told us that:

Aides to Mr. Obama say privately that he has always felt strongly about the proposed community center and mosque, but the White House did not want to weigh in until local authorities made a decision on the proposal, planned for two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

This isn’t about whether the President thinks it’s a nice abstract idea. It’s clear that he believes it’s something that should be built because of where it’s being built.

Oh, you won’t find Werner’s report now if you look for it at AP’s main web site. You can find it here at my web host.

UPDATE 5, 12:30 a.m.: Just to be clear where the establishment press started with the story, and how furiously they’re trying to walk it back, here is an earlier opening from AP that appeared at MSNBC, excerpted at AIPnews.com:

Yeah, I know. The AIP’s addition of “alleged” is gratuitous. More importantly, if you go to AIP now, the link to MSNBC takes you to the AP’s latest attempt at walkback assistance:

Obama defends plan to build mosque near ground zero

Weighing his words carefully on a fiery political issue, President Barack Obama said Saturday that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near New York’s ground zero, but he did not say whether he believes it is a good idea to do so.

The wire service seems to have done an extraordinary job of purging the just noted original. I haven’t found it anywhere. This FreeRepublic post has the first eight paragraphs.

The one I have saved at my web host has the “forcefully endorsed” opening.

Don’t they usually wait until after Labor Day to do this?

Ten days ago, I asserted that that the administration’s cynical use of Andy Griffith for a patently political promo on behalf of Medicare (“This year, as always, we’ll have our guaranteed benefits, and with the new healthcare law, more good things are coming: free check-ups, lower prescription costs”) was “the foundation for the biennial Democratic scare-the-seniors campaign.”

Well, the Social Security portion of that scare campaign kicked in this morning.

President Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to glorify Social Security’s accomplishments (he “somehow” forgot to mention the program’s $7.7 trillion unfunded liability) and to rip unnamed Republicans for proposing to privatize the program. The President, who has used so many straw-man arguments in the past 19 months that he ought to have a scarecrow sitting next to him every time he speaks, framed active GOP proposals as all-or-none privatization (“You shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked hard for, all you’ve earned, at risk”), when they’re not. For example, what President Bush proposed five years ago involved giving those who wished the opportunity to invest 2% of their pay — out of the 12.4% of their pay that currently goes into the system — in one or more of a limited number of investment funds.

But wait until you see how the Associated Press and Erica Werner fanned the flames even further. I found the headline that follows at both the AP’s main site and at the same story at USA Today, so what you’re about to see is clearly their preference:

I watched (i.e., endured) the President’s address at the White House web site (the transcript is here). The President was in full demagogue mode, but he never used the word “destroy.” It’s also not in the transcript.

So here’s a question for Ms. Werner: Where did the word come from? Did co-worker Ben Feller suggest that this is what the President Obama was going to say, or that it’s what Obama would like to see written, after he (Feller) participated in that disgraceful off-the-record lunch with the president (covered Friday evening at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) earlier this week?

Werner’s writing, as would sadly be expected, also did nothing to dispel the false impression that what Republicans want is full privatization. As you’ll see in the final excerpted paragraph below, she also perpetuated the Trust Fund myth while failing to note that the program is already running cash deficits:

President Barack Obama used the anniversary of Social Security to trumpet Democrats’ support for the popular program and accuse Republicans of trying to destroy it.

Seventy-five years after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday: “We have an obligation to keep that promise, to safeguard Social Security for our seniors, people with disabilities and all Americans – today, tomorrow and forever.”

Some Republican leaders in Congress are “pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda if they win a majority in Congress this fall,” Obama said.

He contended that such privatization was “an ill-conceived idea that would add trillions of dollars to our budget deficit while tying your benefits to the whims of Wall Street traders and the ups and downs of the stock market.”

Most Republicans, in fact, are wary of touching that idea, because Social Security is virtually sacrosanct to voters, particularly seniors.

Nonetheless, Democrats have been able to seize on the issue because of a proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, that would allow younger people to put Social Security money into personal accounts.

Ryan’s idea is similar to a proposal pushed unsuccessfully by former President George W. Bush.

… Unless Congress acts, Social Security’s combined retirement and disability trust funds are expected to run out of money in 2037. At that point, Social Security will collect enough in payroll taxes to cover about three-fourths of the benefits.

As a result of Congress’s inaction and the Obamanomics-prolonged recession and weak recovery, Social Security has in two short years gone from running a string of $180 billion-plus surpluses (from 2006-2008) to cash deficits. Benefits paid and administrative costs have been have been outpacing taxes collected. The Congressional Budget Office says that there will be Social Security deficits during the current fiscal year and the next few to follow.

As to the status of the allegedly “almost sacrosanct” program, let’s explain the fiction of the “trust funds” once again for Erica Werner’s and the AP’s benefit:

• Iinstead of being a separate, untouchable stash of cash and investments (i.e., instead of being run like a normal pension plan), Social Security’s Trust Funds have been raided by the rest of the government for decades. The politicians have done this by continually borrowing from them.
• Until recently, by including Social Security in a “unified” budget and raiding its surpluses, Uncle Sam has been able to paper over typically huge deficits in all other government operations. Now that the system is running cash deficits, the days of papering over are gone.
• The Social Security “Trust Fund” balance of $2-plus trillion is, except for very nominal amounts, nothing but a pile of IOUs from the rest of the government — which is otherwise (excluding its debt to the Trust Fund) over $10 trillion in debt.

You see, Erica and AP, the politicians in the ruling class have for all practical purposes already destroyed Social Security. Maybe someday you’ll break down and tell readers about it.

Cross-posted at NewBusters.org.

From Kaukauna, Wisconsin:

AUGUST 14, 2010

Tess Roberts says five “Good Samaritans” are responsible for saving four lives when a morning fire spread throughout her 116-year-old home where she and three others lived last week.

“We’re glad to be alive,” she said. “To rush into a burning home … talk about good Samaritans. They’re my new heroes.”

She and her husband, Tom, were asleep in the first-floor bedroom of their riverfront home, 401 W. Wisconsin Ave., about 2:30 a.m. Aug. 4, when they heard yelling outside and someone pounding on their door.

Tom Roberts, 78, a former Kaukauna fire chief, said he is grateful for the life-saving actions of Chad DeBroux, Troy Kaczmarek, Rick Masuca, Maddie Masuca and Sharon Brown, who rousted them and two tenants from their sleep after an electrical fire had started in one of the second-floor apartments.

“We would have had some of us over in Fargo’s (funeral home, located across the street),” Tom Roberts said.

Rick Masuca, 49, of Kaukauna, and his daughter, Maddie, 22, of Kimberly, ended up hospitalized for a few hours with smoke inhalation after rescuing Irene Tetzlaff, 76, from her burning apartment. Tetzlaff spent one day in the hospital before being released. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

File the news in this report filed late yesterday afternoon by Michael Calderone and John Cook at Yahoo’s Upshot Blog under “D” for Double Standards:

White House reporters mum on Obama lunch, even as papers back transparency

White House reporters are keeping quiet about an off-the-record lunch today with President Obama — even those at news organizations who’ve advocated in the past for the White House to release the names of visitors.

But the identities of the lunch’s attendees won’t remain secret forever: Their names will eventually appear on the White House’s periodically updated public database of visitor logs.

… The Obama White House began posting the logs in order to settle a lawsuit, begun under the Bush administration, from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which sought the Secret Service’s White House visitor logs under the Freedom of Information Act.

… And guess who filed briefs supporting that argument? Virtually every newspaper that covers the White House.

The Washington Post filed an amicus brief in in February 2008 arguing that the names of White House visitors should be released, and it was joined by the Associated Press, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones, USA Today, the Hearst Corporation, the New York Daily News, the Newspaper Guild, the Society of Professional Journalists, and a host of other news outlets.

It’s unclear, of course, whether reporters for any of those newspapers attended the lunch — because none of them will say.

Calderone found out anyway, and in a post early this afternoon, told us who was there:

Ben Feller (Associated Press), Jonathan Weisman and Laura Meckler (Wall Street Journal), Michael Shear and Scott Wilson (Washington Post), Caren Bohan (Reuters), David Jackson (USA Today), Carol Lee (Politico), Peter Nicholas (Tribune Co.), Margaret Talev (McClatchy) and Julianna Goldman (Bloomberg).

Several reporters on this list gave “no comments” to The Upshot on Thursday.

The New York Times was invited but did not attend. White House reporter Peter Baker told The Upshot that the paper “politely declined because we’d like very much to talk on the record.”

Readers here likely have memories of certain of the above reporters going out of their way to protect Barack Obama or to bash Bush 43. The appearance of Weisman’s name reminded me of an absolutely pathetic massage job he did when he was at the Washington Post.

In August 2005, as seen here, Weisman turned what had been an upbeat item about July’s unemployment report by another Post reporter (“Job Growth Strongest in 3 Months”) into a co-written hit piece on Bush (“Economic News Isn’t Helping Bush; Job Growth Up Sharply in July, but Polls Show Dissatisfaction”). Here were the report’s three opening paragraphs:

U.S. job growth jumped last month and the unemployment rate held steady … the government reported yesterday, the latest economic data to show the economy picking up steam.

Yet President Bush’s economic approval ratings remain low, weighed down by anger over Iraq and concerns about lackluster wage increases and stubbornly high gasoline prices.

“I feel the economy is just not as good as it should be,” said Adam Judis, 40, a Pasadena, Calif., computer consultant and political independent. “We’re spending too many lives, resources and money on Iraq. There has to be a point where we say we can’t help everybody. We need to help ourselves.”

My reax at the time:

The Post feels it’s their duty to massage the news for their print subscribers. They just couldn’t let the story go to print without throwing cold water on it, so they found one guy to change the subject to Iraq, and then presented poll results to “prove” that Bush really isn’t handling the economy well (even though the objective evidence says his administration is). This is a clearly conscious, obvious, and disgraceful effort to turn good news into bad news.

You may be wondering what the economic news was that left Weisman unimpressed because of Iraq, gas prices, and supposedly flat wages: In July 2005, the economy added 207,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate was 5%. Yeah, that bad (/sarc).

Watch what Weisman writes at the WSJ warily. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep an special eye on each of the lunch’s attendees for the next few months.

One other thought: Things are pretty bad in journalism when the security-leak sieve known as the New York Times leads the way in ethics by choosing not to participate in the off-the-record luncheon.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

It would seem that what JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater did earlier this week was the stuff that some small-minded people’s dreams are made of. Would all of you out there who think that way please remove yourselves from jobs that involve contact with the public?

One has to wonder, based on her sympathetic paean to the “take this job and shove it — but first, I’ll get my revenge” crowd, if Associated Press Writer Samantha Gross should be among those who deserve involuntary removal from such positions. Ms. Gross’s grotesque near-admiration for others concocting their own supposedly grand exits is my nominee as Exhibit A exemplifying the media’s “strange fascination” with the Slater incident and its meaning noted at this morning’s open thread at NewsBusters.

Here are some less than exemplary excerpts from Ms. Gross’s gruel, including a few paragraphs exemplifying people the AP writer apparently intended to portray as nearly noble (bolds highlighting leftist phraseology and boorish behavior are mine):

Hasn’t everyone thought about doing it?

… Defying the rules, telling people off and walking off a job isn’t usually a launching pad for public acclaim and admiration. But few have fulfilled that particular working man’s fantasy in such grand fashion as JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who left his job via the plane’s emergency chute, beer in hand.

It was enough to set America’s heart aflutter.

Slater’s sudden exit has rekindled memories of workers’ liberation – and sparked wistful excitement among workers who have long fantasized of choosing pride over pay.

… After being scolded for the last time by a boss she believed was treating her unfairly while sleeping with the other waitress on her shift, she (waitress Mary Phelps) seriously considered knocking over the giant pot of tomato sauce sitting on the Italian eatery’s stove.

Instead, she walked to the front of the restaurant and took orders from six tables sitting down at the beginning of the dinner rush. Then, before bringing anyone so much as a drop of water, she left.

“It felt fantastic. It was a great feeling,” she recalls. “It was absolutely no regrets, absolutely. …” (Phelps’s customers who received seriously delayed service were apparently unavailable for comment — Ed.)

(Chris Carter of Knoxville, who says he has walked out of about half of the jobs he has held) says he still gets a thrill of victory every time he walks out the door.

“When you’re not making more than $10 an hour, there’s certain things that are not worth putting up with,” he says. “I’ve never allowed myself to get to that point where I feel like I have to put up with this and I have to be somebody’s slave.”

Gross reports that Carter is only 30 years old and has held “nearly 40 jobs,” meaning that he has walked out of nearly 20. You’ll have to excuse me for thinking that Carter’s dreams might be more about milking the unemployment compensation system — funded, mind you, by those who put up with their oft-annoying managers and the companies who employ them — than they are about finding a personally rewarding way to serve his fellow man.

In this culture, it looks like  there’s another perfectly good reason why employers are reluctant to hire. Of course, there’s the oft-cited regime uncertainty of the Obama administration’s legal and regulatory policy and postures. But what about new hire uncertainty? In a culture where significant numbers seem to be treating Slater as a hero, many smaller employers are more likely to either get the work done with the existing help, do without, or contract the required work out to someone else (e.g., a temporary help firm) to avoid the unpleasantness and negative business consequences of someone who thinks he or she can be the next Steven Slater.

Interestingly, Gross cited no examples of federal government worker walk-offs. I wonder why? There’s certainly no shortage of alienation, rudeness, or inattentive behavior. But there is at least one important difference. Uncle Sam’s worker walkouts are probably less frequent because federal pay and benefits are on average twice as high as the private sector, according to this Tuesday USA Today report. Why would a person with an attitude problem want to make a grand exit from that, when they can get their perverse satisfaction beating up on customers all day and still keep their jobs?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.