Gah! A Mosque!

I have been asked more than once, so here is my answer: It is appalling to me that certain of my fellow Tennesseans have an issue with Muslims who wish to build a church of their own in our state for no other reason that it will be a Muslim institution. (And, yes, that is the sole issue for many.)

This is America. People in America are free to worship whom (or, if you prefer, Whom) they wish, how they wish and where they wish, so long, of course as they did not violate any other person's rights to do the same, or any other personal rights for that matter. This isn't something new: this concept was endorsed by those "Founding Fathers" everyone likes to cite (at least when it's convenient for them).

Part of living in a free society is that you have to tolerate a lot of things that you don't like, in return which you get to do things that other people don't like. If you don't like it, well, as I'm sure you may have aid more than once in your life to someone else when they had some kind of complaint about the way we do things in the good ol' USA: find a better country and move. We won't miss you.

Everything You've Ever Needed To Know About Vanderbilt Football In One Short Headline

"Vandy needs punter to deliver."

George W. Bush Suddenly An OK Guy Again

"The war against the terrorists is not a war against Islam. In fact, you can’t have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam.

George W. Bush understood this. And it is odd to see Barack Obama less clear about this matter than his predecessor. It’s time for W. to weigh in.

This — along with immigration reform and AIDS in Africa — was one of his points of light. As the man who twice went to war in the Muslim world, he has something of an obligation to add his anti-Islamophobia to this mosque madness. W. needs to get his bullhorn back out."

Gosh, and after all the New York Times did for him during his tenure. Yes, I'm sure he'll get right on that.

Now and Then

Me, in April 2004:

"At this stage, only a blind Bush partisan would have absolutely no reservations about our military action in Iraq. I certainly do not align myself with those who insist that America has mired itself in a Vietnam-style "quagmire." (Let's see how things are in another five years before making that particular comparison.) But I do harbor some uneasiness. I am quite disappointed with the Bush administration's seeming reluctance to realize that the failure (thus far) to find weapons of mass destruction is something that gives even hawks like me the willies. Is our intelligence really that faulty? If so, what are we going to do about it? If, on the other hand, there really were WMDs over there at some point (a safe bet in my book), then where are they now? It would be nice if the president would just talk to Americans one evening from the Oval Office and address this issue head-on, but that's apparently too much to ask. Too bad, because silence from the White House on this issue fosters skepticism among the public at large, and I fear that the burden of proof we will have to meet when the next Saddam comes along will be simply unattainable." (Emphasis added.)

Karl Rove, today:

At the time, we in the Bush White House discussed responding but decided not to relitigate the past. That was wrong and my mistake: I should have insisted to the president that this was a dagger aimed at his administration's heart. What Democrats started seven years ago left us less united as a nation to confront foreign challenges and overcome America's enemies.

"I'm shocked...shocked..."

Watching the Washington types act all flustered about Helen Thomas is pretty funny since it's been pretty obvious to most of us out here in Flyover Country that someone needed to stick a fork into her many moons ago. Note to DC-ers: she was embarrassing even before this little incident.

But no, they gave her a "special front-row seat" and treated her with the utmost respect for no better reason--from what I can tell--than that she's still hanging around, kind of like an ancient half-nutty relative who everyone expects to die in short order but who nevertheless manages to show up on the doorstep every Christmas Eve to embarrass everyone within earshot.

Well, maybe this will bring an end to the charade the White House press corps has been putting on for all of us. That would be a plus.

UPDATE: Drudge: "Helen Sent To Poland." I love it--headline of the month.

Mud Mask