RUSH: Howard Dean yesterday on our New York flagship, WABC, said…
DEAN: We have to understand that it is, uhh, a — a real affront to people who lost their lives, including Muslims. Uh, that site doesn’t belong to any particular religion. I think a good, reasonable compromise could be work out without violating the principle that, uh, people ought to be able to worship, um, as they see fit. … I think another site would be a better idea.
RUSH: So another Democrat — the former head of the Democrat National Committee, in fact — is off the reservation: Put the mosque somewhere else. Something else in this Pew poll that I want to reemphasize. Over 50% of the people in this poll say, ‘Hey, look, I don’t care if you put a mosque two blocks from my house. Fine and dandy. Just don’t put it at the World Trade Center. Don’t put it at Ground Zero.’ There is no anti-Muslim bigotry in this. There’s nobody wants to deny anybody their religious belief or freedom. Except the left. The left routinely wants to impinge upon Christians and their practice of their faith. But the very people this poll who oppose the mosque being built at Ground Zero say, ‘One’s fine two blocks from my house. I don’t care, but don’t put it at Ground Zero.’
‘The developers behind the Islamic center planned for a site near Ground Zero won’t rule out accepting financing from the Mideast — including from Saudi Arabia and Iran — as they begin searching for $100 million needed to build the project.’ Do you know how much money they’ve raised for this so far? I read this morning it’s $18,000. What are we even talking about here? They need a hundred million for this? I also found out this morning there’s a mosque four or five blocks away. That is part of the story of Muslims say, ‘There are no mosques in this area of town where we can go worship.’ There are. I saw a Google map earlier today of all the mosques throughout the New York City area. There are many, many, many, many mosques. But now you got the Rauf guy, the imam, is going over and talking to the Iranians in Saudi Arabia and we’re paying for this?
We’re paying for this. We spent $16,000 sending him as an envoy over there. The State Department sent him. Hillary. But the amount of money the imam has raised for his mosque is not much. He’s trying to get a hundred million dollars for this, and he’s gonna get it from Saudi Arabia — and if he has to take it from Iran, he will. Now, this is not tone deafness. This is not… This is thumb-in-the-eye stuff, which is exactly what the whole project is — and this is, I think, evidence of it. ‘The religious organization and the development company behind the center declined to say how much of the $100 million needed to build the facility has already been raised.’ The number is $18,000, and that’s from the Cordoba people, from their 2008 990 form. It’s 18 grand.
By the way, I want to know: Has Obama ever called Muslims bitter clingers? Well, he’s called Christians bitter clingers. He did that in San Francisco. I’m just throwing these things out here, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity. Some think he’s a Muslim. I’m just saying there might be reasons why some people think this. You know, the Cordoba project, is a 501(c)(3) charity and they’re reporting 18 grand that they have. Here’s the New York Times Sheryl Gay Stolberg piece on Obama and Muslim. But Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said aides did work hard to push back against misinformation in a news media environment in which ‘the tweets of discredited rabble-rousers have as much credence to many as the pronouncements of the paper of record.’
Rabble-rousers. Now, think of that: Rabble-rousers having as much credibility as the always honest and patriotic New York Times. What is the world coming to? People are believing what they tweet and what they read on Facebook more than they’re believing the New York Times. The media is in utter shock and panic because they live with the daily fantasy and belief that they have the ability to shape and form public opinion to protect Obama, and they’re in full protection mode today. But they’re being undermined when the imam heads out to fundraise and won’t rule out taking money from Saudi Arabia or even Iran. ‘We’ll look at all available options within the United States to start. We’re hoping to fund this predominately from domestic donors. That can be everything from institutions all the way down to personal [contributors].’
That’s Oz Sultan, spokesman for the center now called Park51. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of course, has called for an investigation into the funding of those who oppose it approximate. She got a little flak for that, so yesterday she said: ‘Okay, well, let’s investigate the funding of those who support it.’ So she wants to investigate all these people. Hey, Nancy, you want to investigate the Iranians? You want to investigate the Anti-Defamation League? You want to investigate the 9/11 families? You basically want to — in a Stalinistic move — investigate the American people, essentially. Soft tyranny. It’s amazing to witness all this in the midst of a plummeting economy, and the White House wonders why they’ve got problems. They wonder why people don’t trust them, why they don’t like the president, why his approval numbers are plummeting? The economy is sinking fast. There’s no end in sight. Obama is doubling down on all the things that have caused it to plunge — and, meanwhile, seems more focused on making sure a mosque gets built at Ground Zero than he is on his own country’s economy.