Every Inch of America is Consecrated Ground

The New York Times has an excellent report on nationwide protests against mosque construction, in such hallowed American locations like Sheboygon, Wisconsin (hi, Joe!) and Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Of course, the opposition to the New York City mosque that has breached the Muslim-site-exclusion-zone-of-indeterminate-radius could not possibly stem from similar motivations. It is a principled defense of the legitimate pain of 9/11 victims.

(Same ban rules apply to NF, CC, and Joe. Oh, and we'll say Superdestroyer too -- I've been meaning to do that for awhile anyway. I'll decide when -- and if -- I feel like lifting those.).

Zakaria Returns His Check

When the ADL first decided to come out in opposition to the proposed mosque/community center being built near the WTC site, Jon Chait declared that it was "such a fundamental violation of the ADL's principles that the group is no longer supportable."

This weekend, Fareed Zakaria became one of the highest profile figures to turn those words into action, electing to return an award and honorarium received from the ADL in 2005. He said that he can no longer in conscience accept either given the dramatic breach the ADL has just initiated with its own founding motives.

And you know what? He's right.

Abe Foxman responds here, and it remains clear that he doesn't get it. As I noted the other day, Foxman continues to believe he is the real victim here -- that he was just misunderstood, that folks today can't grasp "nuance". What I see is that Mr. Foxman believes that Muslims have an obligation to not have a community within some indeterminate radius in southern Manhattan, because other Muslims committing a terrorist atrocity nearby. They have an obligation to restrict their own rights, to limit their freedom of worship, because of the "feelings" of others. Even though we feel sympathy for the victims, insofar as their feelings manifest in the form of blind, unguided anger towards Muslims qua Muslims, they do not deserve the backing of a organization that putatively defends religious liberty.

So, good for Zakaria. And while I highly doubt that the ADL will be admitting their mistake any time soon, here is to hoping. They were wrong on this -- wrong on the deepest, most fundamental level -- and I believe it is a mortal wound to their credibility.

Oh, Joe and N. Friedman are both banned from commenting on this thread. I will delete comments from you sight unseen. Any other commenters are welcome.

Tennessee Sense

The Tennessee primaries are done, and after a year in which we've seen candidates like Sharron Angle nominated and incumbents like Bob Inglis (R-SC) knocked off for insufficient crazy, it's nice to see that at least one state seems to have (miracles of miracles!) made sensible choices.

Surprising nobody, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) handily turned back a primary challenge from former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, winning by over a 55 point margin. Herenton had once again tried to race-bait his way to victory in this majority-Black district, and once again the voters showed that they weren't having it.

On the Republican side of things, the nominee for Governor is Bill Haslam, the mayor of Knoxville and the only one of the three major GOP candidates in that race not to go all-in on the crazy (Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey had argued that Islam was "cult" that should be deprived of protection on the First Amendment, and Rep. Zack Wamp had floated seceding from America).

So, good for Volunteer State voters on both sides of the aisle. I salute you.

Palin Endorses Murphy, Ehrlich Breathes Sigh of Relief

Sarah Palin has endorsed long shot challenger Brian Murphy in the Maryland Republican gubernatorial primary.

Former Governor Robert Ehrlich is the overwhelming favorite in that race, and I doubt this endorsement will cause him too much trouble in the primary. And with all due respect to Governor Palin's star power (though if it can't win you Kansas, what can it do?) I have to think that a Palin endorsement would be a 200 lbs anvil that incumbent Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley would hang around Ehrlich's neck in the general. This race may be tight, but Maryland remains one of the most liberal and well-educated states in the nation. This is not real America Palin territory.

Prop. 8 Reversed

The opinion is here, I'm reading it now.

Huge win for equal rights. It won't be the last stroke in the battle by any means. But tonight, we can celebrate.

Nearly Half of All GOPers Doubt Obama Was Born in the US

CNN provides a staggering new poll indicating that a full 41% of Republicans harbor serious doubts about whether President Obama was born in the United States. Only 19% of Independents and 15% of Democrats believe that Obama "probably" or "definitely" was born in another country.

It truly amazes me just how deeply entrenched birtherism is inside the modern conservative movement. Rush Limbaugh is, of course, only the latest to fall into the fever swamp.

Meanwhile, in not entirely unrelated news, vanquished Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) recounts his meeting with the tea partiers. It starts with folks telling him how Social Security numbers indicate how people are (literally) owned by banks, and goes downhill from there (with the usual pitstops in old school anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering).

Today in Mosquedom

A ton of news cropped up regarding the WTC mosque/community center. This post will be about half-substantive, half-roundup.

First, I can't think of a better place to start than Mayor Bloomberg's stellar speech on the subject. It really hits home that the question here is one of our deepest commitments to religious liberty.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right.

“On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to?’ (Bloomberg’s voice cracks here a little as he gets choked up.) ‘What beliefs do you hold?’

“The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights and the freedoms that the terrorists attacked.

Damn the fuck straight.

Meanwhile, I wish I could give a cookie to the AJC for not opposing the building of the mosque, but you know what? I can't. This is such an open and shut case that the mealy-mouthed, ham-handed decision by which the AJC -- after agonizing deliberation -- deigned to give its approval is worth nothing to me. This passive-aggressive "questions have been raised" formulation, wherein any Muslim in the public sphere must carry a punch card indicating the last time they condemned Osama bin Laden, is incredibly pernicious and must be countered at all costs. I bow to no one in opposing radical extremists of all stripes and denominations -- Islamic ones included -- but Muslims don't have an a priori obligation to show themselves to be peace-loving. Like all other persons, we ought to assume they fully buy into the panoply of human rights protections and human values until they, personally, show themselves otherwise. The burden is on those making the allegation that this group is aligned with Islamic radicals. It is a burden they cannot meet.

Of course, that pales in comparison to the contempt I feel for Abe Foxman right now, and the tragic little tears he's crying about how everyone is ganging up on the poor ADL and not recognizing for its "nuance" ... ugh. Gag me. That was decidedly not the lesson Foxman needed to learn. The lesson he needed to learn is that pissing away decades of credibility opposing religious bigotry is going to meet with backlash. As it should.

That being said, I'm not sure the ADL's position on this is fairly traceable to its position on Israel. In fact, I think Beinart misunderstands the proper role the ADL should take with regards to Israel, for the ADL is not a domestic Israeli human rights organization. To be sure, it should oppose religious discrimination anywhere and everywhere, including in Israel. But the ADL, as an international organization, is properly concerned with the way that anti-Israel animus in the global community both inspires and is inspired by anti-Jewish sentiment. I reject the notion that the fact that Israel is a place where Jews have power completely obviates any and all discussion of anti-Semitism in the context of Israel.

The far-right ACLJ has announced it is filing a legal challenge seeking to reverse the decision of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission declining to designate the site a "landmark", thus allowing the mosque to proceed. The suit must be for show, because I can't imagine even the ACLJ believes it will win an "abuse of discretion" argument, and effectively their suit can be summarized as haling the NYCLPC into court for not deciding to violate the Constitution (Cf. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993)).

Finally, the backers of the have publicly thanked their Jewish backers. You're welcome, but honestly? Just doing my duty as an American.

No Worries

The last time Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) faced a race-baiting challenger in his majority-Black African-American district, he thrashed Nikki Tinker by a 60 point margin. I promised at the time that I wouldn't worry that the voters of the 9th District of Tennessee would fall for such naked appeals to prejudice. This time around, Cohen drew a decidedly tougher challenge in Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who also is trying to race-bait his way to victory.

Fortunately for my promise, I still don't need to worry -- Cohen appears to be cruising to victory, and by now has to be considered firmly entrenched in the district. And that's a good thing: Cohen is an excellent Congressman who deserves a long and successful career in Washington.

I Bring a Knife, You Pull a Gun

I generally like my laptop, but one thing that it hates is wireless internet. After two years of struggle, I finally effectively ceded the issue upon moving into my Virginia apartment, connecting to the internet via a direct landline.

But upon moving to my new place in Chicago (which I love), I foolishly decided to break that ceasefire, and attempt to set up a new wireless network. Oooh, the laptop didn't like that, and it retaliated by destroying the ability to connect even through a landline.

Wireless internet remains at the laptop's discretion, which is why I'm able to post this message from the airport. But things are not looking peachy right now.

ADL-Approved Religious Discrimination

Absolutely outrageous. The Anti-Defamation League has released a statement approving of efforts to bar the construction of a Muslim mosque in southern Manhattan, several blocks from the WTC site. While attempting to disassociate themselves from the conceded "bigotry" which they acknowledge animates some of the mosque's opponents, the ADL claims that the site "will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right." "[U]ltimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right."

I submit that it is a question of both, and the precedent that the ADL is adhering to is one that is exceedingly detrimental to the safety and equality of religious minorities worldwide, including Jews.

The ADL's attempt to distinguish folks whose opposition to the mosque is based on "bigotry", and those for whom it isn't, is unavailing. It's all bigotry -- some of it is simply better dressed than others. Restricting the civil rights of a given population because some members of that population committed horrible acts is bigotry per se. There's no getting around it. We might sympathize with folks who -- having been brutally victimized by members of religious group -- are fearful or otherwise antagonistic towards that group as a whole. But such sentiments simply can't be given force of law. To force members of a religious group to bear additional burdens based on the actions of their brethren in faith -- actions which they themselves oppose stridently -- is bigotry in its purest form.

I am literally shaking with rage over this, because I trust the ADL to be there when the rights of religious minorities are threatened. I can no longer do that. That the ADL apparently views Egypt's treatment of its Jews as a model example of religious liberty is disqualifying for them to be taken seriously as a civil rights organization concerned with the fair and egalitarian treatment of all people. Their position on this issue is absolutely unconscionable, and is an embarassment to anyone who truly cares about the rights of religious minorities in the United States and worldwide.

Other commenters:

Greg Sargent: "On this one, you're either with the bigots or you're against them. And ADL has in effect sided with them."

Adam Serwer: "I learned a very important lesson in Hebrew School that I have retained my entire life. If they can deny freedom to a single individual because of who they are, they can do it to anyone."

Tablet Magazine: "Founded in 1913, the ADL, in its words, 'fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all.' Except when it does the precise opposite."

Conversos

I will admit that I harbor some prejudice against Jews who convert to another faith. It's not something I'm proud of, but there it is. There is a feeling of abandonment -- we're an embattled minority, and these folks are taking the easy way out. A socially sanctioned (encouraged, even) Michael Jackson pill, if you will. And sometimes, converts, in their quest to prove their loyalty to their (new) faith, are amongst the most zealous oppressors of their former brethren (this, of course, is not limited to folks converting from Judaism).

But this my problem, and my prejudices do not deserve any more protection by the law than anyone elses. So when an Israeli Oxford Professor claims she was discriminated against after converting from Judaism to Anglicanism, assuming her story is accurate, I think she has every right to legal redress.

Of course I have the right to oppose anti-Jewish behavior from any source, whether it be from Jews, Gentiles, or formerly-Jewish Gentiles. But neither I, nor anyone else, has the right to take a preemptive strike -- discriminating for fear of discrimination. My prejudices are my own problem, and I should be the one (as much as possible) to bear their burden.

Via.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Tea Party?

Not Democrats -- they see the far-right movement as their best hope for keeping political control in 2010, by forcing the GOP to run terrifyingly fanatical candidates like Sharron Angle. But the GOP, which denounced as "quackery" a Democratic attempt to tie the GOP to the tea partiers, might be getting a bit nervous.

They got to be careful, though. Republicans who denounce the far-right tend not to last long in Republican primaries (Bob Bennett and Bob Inglis, wave from the galleries!). I hardly think the tea party will be thrilled by public GOP efforts to disassociate themselves. But I hardly think voters will be thrilled if they don't.

Rough gig.

Take Two

I'm not convinced that someone who truly screwed up (as opposed to committing the gaffe of honestly stating his beliefs) would need two cracks at the apology apple (see also: Fatima Hajaig). But I don't speak for the ADL.

Still, as far as I'm concerned, Oliver Stone is just a sober Mel Gibson.

Like Precious Little Snowflakes

Jeffrey Lord, a writer at the American Spectator has concluded that Shirley Sherrods lied about her father being lynched. Yes, her father was brutally beaten to death by a mob on the courthouse steps. But "lynching", we're told, requires a rope -- otherwise, it's just "a brutal and fatal beating," and an outright fabrication to say otherwise.

Needless to say, this doesn't track anybody's definition of "lynching", which generally refers to an extrajudicial execution by a mob (the Israeli commandos who claimed that the crew of the Mavi Marmara was preparing to lynch them were not referring to ropes). And consequently, it seems like virtually everybody is coming down on Lord -- from Matt Yglesias and Jeff Fecke to Radley Balko and Lord's own colleagues at The American Spectator.

But Paul Campos managed to nutpick a gem from a commenter trying, desparately, to defend Lord's statement:

Regardless of the dictionary’s definition, English is considered the most nuanced of languages because each word has a specific, unique meaning giving context and emotion to any written or spoken idea or statement. I don’t need a dictionary to instruct me on the accepted meaning of the word ‘lynching.’

That is so, so far from an accurate description of English that it nearly defies belief. Words in English rarely have just one specific meaning, and the idea that the word "lynching" tends to evoke a noose doesn't mean a extrajudicial mob killing isn't a lynching, any more than the classic image of a "picnic" occurring on a grassy field would mean someone is liar if their "picnic" occurred on a craggy mountain ledge.

And Do You KNOW What Dancing Leads To?

A woman sued Girls Gone Wild for filming her without her consent at a bar. Basically, she was dancing at the bar, and somebody pulled her top down, exposing her breasts to the camera. The jury ruled against her, in what has to be some of the most stunningly offensive logic ever deployed:

After deliberating for just 90 minutes on Thursday, the St. Louis jury came back with a verdict in favor of the smut peddlers. Patrick O'Brien, the jury foreman, explained later to reporters that they figured if she was willing to dance in front of the photographer, she was probably cool with having her breasts on film. They said she gave implicit consent by being at the bar, and by participating in the filming - though she never signed a consent form, and she can be heard on camera saying "no, no" when asked to show her breasts.

I have to admit, it never occurred to me that dancing at a bar equaled implied consent to be filmed having your clothes stripped off (that "no" once again meant "yes" is tragically too common to comment on). But I guess I have one of those crazy, feminist conceptions of consent that doesn't let you have any fun at all.

What Fools They Were To Trust The Website I Write For

In the wake of the Shirley Sherrod scandal, it became known that Noah Jonathan Joel (so many Pollaks!) Pollak -- the soon to be crushed election opponent of Rep. Jan Schkowsky (D-IL) -- is a contributor to Andrew Breitbart's website. Schkowsky, seeking to make some hay, asked Pollak to stop writing for Breitbart. Pollak demurred, saying he would continue his association, but released this statement:

"Andrew [Breitbart] used intemperate language in his debate with the NAACP, which was wrong," Pollak said in a statement. "It was even more wrong for the White House and the NAACP to punish a woman for alleged racism without conducting a full and fair investigation."

Beautiful. "Sure, the website I write for released a spliced-up, wildly misleading video in order to smear a woman and a prominent civil rights organization as racist," (I assume that's what "intemperate language" means, though Lord knows that's an A+ demonstration of weasel-wording). "But even worse was that the White House and NAACP were dumb enough to trust that something posted on it can be taken at face value. I mean, come on!"*

Honestly, I need to genuflect for a moment at this, because ... wow. It's just in a class of its own, isn't it?

* Not that I disagree entirely -- it is bad that the Department of Agriculture rushed to fire Ms. Sherrods without fully investigating the charge, particularly given that the source was, um, Andrew Breitbart. But it is a bizarre standard that the entity that initiated the lie should be judged less harshly than the entity that got taken in by it.

In any event, we've all learned a valuable lesson in trusting things posted on Andrew Breitbart's website -- including those, I imagine, posted by Noah Jonathan Joel Pollak. As Pollak has reminded us, we'd be fools to trust anything he says at this point without undertaking an independent investigation of our own.

A Model to Emulate

When Sarah Palin announced her desire that "peaceful" Muslims "refudiate" a proposed Mosque to be built a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, I was stunned at her brazen devolution into religion demogoguery. Put aside the fact that the organization building the group is the epitome of a "peaceful" Muslim group. As Adam Holland observes, there really isn't any other way to characterize the opposition of Palin and her ilk other than as naked religious bigotry.

A law school friend of mine was defending Palin, and I told him that the argument (such as it is) against the Mosque reminded me of a decision by the Egyptian government to forbid Jews from utilizing a recently restored synagogue in retaliation for Israeli "aggressions" against Muslim holy sites. When I read that story, I saw a human rights violation. Sarah Palin, I said, saw a model to emulate.

I didn't mean it farcically, but I hardly expected Palin or one of her allies to actually consciously admit that they viewed religious discrimination the Middle East as a guide for us to follow. Yet here's Newt Gingrich, explicitly pointing to Saudi bans on synagogues and churches as a reason to bar a Mosque in New York. What I see as barbaric, Gingrich apparently sees as pathbreaking. If only we could be as humane and open-minded parochial and bigoted as the Saudis! What a great vision for America!

The similarity between Palin (and Gingrich) and the bigoted policymakers in the Egyptian and Saudi government doesn't surprise me, as Palin clearly cut from the same cloth as those who would render me a second-class citizen -- perhaps why she is one of the most singularly unpopular politicians amongst American Jews (others have alternative explanations).

The Redemption Scenario

Cross-posted to The Moderate Voice

The scandal of the day was the story of a USDA employee who appeared to indicate that she gave less than full help to a White farmer in an incident over 20 years ago, on account of his race. She told the story at an NAACP dinner, hence the contemporary hook -- conservatives (or at least segments of them) are still on their kick that the NAACP is the true racist organization in America. As it turns out, the employee was actually telling the tale as a redemption scenario -- she realized her prejudice was wrong, threw her full support to the White family, and ended up saving the farm. Hence why the family has consistently intervened to give her their full support.

When I first saw the story this afternoon, I didn't have time to blog about it, which is good, because I didn't know the full context and, like the NAACP, would have been at risk of getting "snookered". But I did know that the incident happened over 20 years ago. And that got me to thinking.

When the United States finally repudiated Jim Crow in the 1960s and 70s, it did not come with any purges. By and large, the same bureaucrats who managed our racist system in 1950 still managed the more egalitarian system that had emerged by 1970. There are lots of reasons for this, starting with the fact that firing every single person who had participated in America's brand of racial apartheid would have effectively left us without a civil service, and ending with the fact that America never really has managed to wrap its head around just how deeply the sins of racism had enmeshed itself in the system -- a full accounting of which would have extracted its pound of flesh from virtually each and every man and woman alive in this nation.

In any event, these bureaucrats took many forms. Some undoubtedly had opposed racism even at its apex, others really didn't care about it one way or the other. Some were loyal disciples of Jim Crow who later realized the error of their ways, and some had no guilt at all regarding their role as agents of apartheid, but adjusted to the new social order all the same. And some, of course, were entirely unrepentant and maintained a belief in White supremacy, but suppressed that outlook just enough to keep their job.

The point being -- this nation has a long history of employing the formerly racist. The best case scenario for such employees, usually, is that they come to see the light and dedicate the remainder of their professional lives towards remedying racial inequality and securing racial justice. And that story -- a story of redemption -- appears to be the story of Shirley Sherrod. It's not the worst tale in the world. To the extent that this country has moved forward on matters of race, it is, in fact, the quintessential American tale.

But Will It Be Enough?

Solicitor General and SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan advanced out of committee today, garnering the surprise support of South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. Some commentators are now wondering whether Graham will face a backlash from the far-right base over the lethal apostasy of not filibustering each and every Obama-led initiative that comes down the pike (Erick Erickson -- best known for calling David Souter a "goat-fucking child molester" -- said not filibustering Kagan would constitute "a high act of confirmation treason"). In response, a Graham consultant argued that Senator Graham is "a thinking person's conservative. I expect him to do well among voters with IQ's in triple digits."

Steve Benen took note of that passage and observes that any Democrat who essentially called opposing voters idiots would be tarred and feathered as an elitist. Fortunately, since I'm not really a public figure, I'm simply free to wonder whether the class of voters with IQ's over 100 is sufficient to cobble together a winning coalition in a South Carolina GOP primary (ask Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) about that).

The Grand Except

Arizona Law Professor Jack Chin is far, far more charitable than I'm inclined to be towards UMKC Law Prof Kris Kobach, a principal drafter of the Arizona anti-immigrant law who is falsely claiming in bars racial profiling. Of course, it doesn't -- the bill says that law enforcement officers "may not consider race, color or national origin . . . except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution." Which, under Arizona and federal law, they can -- at least to some extent. Professor Kobach simply omits the qualifier at the end of the passage.

Professor Chin graciously accepts that "the misleading quotation reflects Prof. Kobach's honest [though incorrect] recollection of the law", and urges him to go back to the legislature and get them to fix the language so it actually bars racial profiling. But, "[o]n the other hand, on the off chance that the law was actually intended to" sanction racial profiling, Professor Chin rightfully says the law's proponents should acknowledge that it does so.