Former Obama supporter remarks via Atlas Shrugs, 9/11/10:
"A comment that shows how the tide has turned, from Bruce Godfrey:
'I campaigned for Obama in 2008 in DC and VA, so I am not Pamela Geller's natural audience, to say the least. And I actually supported this mosque - loudly - when I first heard about it. But the more I learned, the more I have read, the more I realized I was simply wrong.
To have planned its opening for 9/11/2011, even as an initial draft, shocks the conscience. While some have characterized Abdul-Rauf as pro-American, if he blames the U.S. in part as an accessory for 9/11 and has not repudiated the comment, it's for shame. It would be nice if Islam were like the Bahai faith that it persecutes - non-proselytizing, pro-equality, pro-peace, pro-science. But it's the opposite of these things. And naming it after an Islamic conquest in Christian Europe - well in poker we call that a tell. Reading selections of ibn Warraq's Why I Am Not a Muslim was also instructive.
I don't know if I agree with all of Geert Wilders' agenda - banning books and taxing burkas seems a bit silly and bizarre.* But his basic point - that Islam has a predatory character and seeks conquest or at least jurisdiction over the planet, and is a hazard to Enlightenment values - would get him my vote.
- Even 8 weeks ago, I'd have dismissed Pamela Geller as a nut. Now I want to buy her book.
If this means I don't get invited to any cocktail parties on the Upper West Side for the rest of my life, fine; beer and a shot in East Baltimore work for me.'
*For the record, Wilders' call to ban the qur'an has to be understood in the context of Dutch law, which does ban books.
- *Wilders said if Mein Kamf is banned, the qur'an should be, too. It was a call for a consistent application of existing Dutch law."
.from Atlas Shrugs blog by Pamela Geller
- Best pictures and video of September 11, 2010 memorial and Ground Zero mosque protest on
- Urban Infidel blog.
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