Some of the most offensive guilt-by-association demagoguery over the "not at Ground Zero" Islamic center "mosque" has come from the usual suspects: teatard favorites like former snowbilly half-Governor Winky and right-wing charlatan Poot Gingrich. It's time to add former New York mayor Rudy 9-11! to this rogue's gallery of demagogues using this issue for political gain.
Tim Heffernan has a hard-hitting piece in Esquire magazine's politics blog, in which he takes on Rudy 9-11!'s not-so-subtle message that the people wanting the Islamic center to be built are "warriors" who are stoking "those divisive issues." It sets up a win-win for the wingnuts, too: don't move the center's location and you're deliberately provoking "real Americans;" move the center, and you're admitting collective responsibility for 9-11. Neat bit of demagoguery.
It's striking to note the difference between the shameful Rudy 9-11! and the current mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who took a strong, principled public stand for the building of the center. Bloomberg walked away from an increasingly radical Rethuglican Party, while Rudy 9-11! walks deeper into its fevered swamps of lunacy.
(photo: The colossal one himself)
