Mosque Leaders Are Not Planning to Move, and Other Cordoba House Developments!
Now that Barack Obama has opened his mouth on Cordoba House—aka Park51, aka (but not really) the "Ground Zero Mosque"—the ugly story won't be going away for a while. So, what's the latest?
Are those terror-loving Muslims finally moving uptown?
In recent days, both Israeli newspaper Haaretz and New York's CBS 2 have run stories implying that Cordoba's builders were considering — or, in Haaretz's case, had already agreed to — a move to a new location. America wins! Or does it?
Haaretz's claim came from unnamed "sources in New York," and was shot down immediately on the community center's Twitter feed, which added, "On a side note, if Haaretz likes publishing fables, perhaps they could go back to the Yiddish ones with parables #welikethosebetter." They later deleted and apologized for that one!
CBS 2, meanwhile, put up a story late last night called, "Ground Zero Mosque on the Move?" which got people babbling again. This, too, was highly highly speculative:
There was a possible resolution in the works in the debate surrounding the proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center near ground zero.
It looks as if the developers of the mosque may be willing to budge and move away from the Park 51 location where they originally planned the construction, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reports.
So will the mosque be moving?
Then all that Marcia Kramer reports is that the mosque's planners are going to meet with Gov. David Paterson, but gives no indication that they're open for a compromise.
So the lesson is, unless you actually have any idea about whether the Cordoba Initiative has plans to relocate, there's not much good in reporting that the Cordoba Initiative has plans to relocate.
Newt Gingrich's shamelessness even stuns Shamelessness Hall of Fame inductee Pat Buchanan
Remember the other day when Newt Gingrich introduced his latest hilarious and wrong argument against Cordoba? You know, that "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington," so why should some law-abiding Muslims have the right to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero? Well, even former presidential candidate and MSNBC commentator Pat Buchanan — who got his "big break" writing race-baiting strategies for Richard Nixon in the '60s, and has recently worried about Jews taking over the Supreme Court and white Americans "losing their country" — thinks Gingrich went a lil' too far with his Nazi comparison.
Tyrannical overlord Nancy Pelosi is coming for you anti-mosque people!
Nancy Pelosi is now front-and-center in the debate! She, like many, wants to know how this stupid local zoning issue spread so quickly among the national right-wing. But she thinks the mosque's opposition should be investigated! Which moneyed wingnuts are "ginning up" this whole thing? From a San Francisco radio show, where she was trying to discuss other issues:
"There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."
So now right-wingers are all scared of Nancy Pelosi trying to investigate them. Cheers all around!
That is all the "mosque news" for now. At least, it's enough.
[Image via AP]