The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Bottom Stories of the Day
- “4 Decades Later, China Still Isn’t Discussing Cultural Revolution”–headline, McClatchy Newspapers, Aug. 24
- “Forbes Promotes Capitalism”–headline, Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, Iowa), Aug. 25
- “Breaking News: President Obama Says ‘I’m Having a Great Time’ on Vacation”–headline, ABCNews.com, Aug. 25
Mr. Mayor, Have You No Shame?
Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, has an op-ed in today’s New York Post defending the Ground Zero mosque. Actually, the Post informs us, it’s an adaptation of “Bloomberg’s prepared remarks for his annual Ramadan celebration at Gracie Mansion yesterday.”
It is a low performance. Bloomberg panders to his audience by slandering the two-thirds or so of Americans who take offense at the idea of a fancy new mosque near the site of an Islamic supremacist atrocity:
Islam did not attack the World Trade Center–al Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American.
The substance of this statement is unremarkable: Obviously it is wrong to implicate all of Islam in the 9/11 attacks.
But the mayor employs scurrilous McCarthyite rhetoric in an attempt to inflame emotions and divert attention from a point that should be equally obvious: The Ground Zero mosque planners have implicated themselves by seeking to exploit the symbolism of the site, whatever their purpose is in doing so.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.
