What Would Jesus Do? Probably Not What Mitt Did

The last 24 hours have been rather hectic in the Middle East, and I, sadly, have had scant time to check out the news in other than a cursory manner.  Here's what's happened so far:

Yesterday, US embassies in Egypt and Libya were attacked by mobs, apparently responding to an inflammatory, anti-Muslim video produced by some fringe amateur filmmaker.  How sleazy is the video?  Well, I haven't seen it, but it received a seal of approval from Terry Jones--organizer of International Burn a Koran Day (which I'm sad to say falls on a Saturday this year, so no day off!).  Apparently, a large portion of the Islamic world has yet to realize that just because a mentally defective racist American happens to say something, this does not reflect the official position of the American government or the vast majority of Americans.  At any rate, these protests turned particularly violent in Libya, where four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed.

It goes without saying--or it should--that no one in his right mind--American, Libyan, Egyptian; Democrat, Republican, or Independent--condones these actions.  The Libyan government condemned the attacks, as did any number of decent people the world over.  As for the domestic US reaction, the consensus could be summed up as anger at the perpetrators, sympathy for the victims, and resolve not to be cowed by international terrorists.  Despite their well-publicized differences, political figures both Democratic--President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator John Kerry--and Republican--Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senator Mitch McConnell--issued sensible, sensitive responses to the horrific events.  Politics, as it has been often said, stop at the water's edge.

But someone forgot to tell Mitt Romney.  Rather than taking the opportunity to appear statesmanlike, Romney wasted no time in politicizing the incident, spewing partisan misinformation to an anxious nation.

A bit of background: Before--let me emphasize, BEFORE--the attacks on the embassies, an embassy employee, in an apparent attempt to soothe the feelings of Muslims over the offensive video--issued a statement essentially affirming the United States' commitment to religious freedom and its fundamental respect for members of all faiths.  This relatively benign statement--again, made BEFORE the attacks--was seized upon by Mitt Romney as some kind of "apology" offered up by President Obama to the very people who killed his Ambassador.  The fact that it was not an apology nor was the statement made by the President or any member of his Cabinet only adds to the inanity of Romney's statement.

Andrew Sullivan has done a thorough job of destroying Mitt Romney for this egregious act of tactlessness.  I would just like to emphasize the utter cluelessness this betrays.  Because who's Romney trying to impress?  Anyone who would conceivably believe these blatant misrepresentations is already firmly in the "Vote Romney" column.  Anyone else--anyone undecided--must surely listen to this repulsive act of blatant politicization and shake his head over the depths to which an intelligent, historically moderate representative of the American elite has allowed himself to sink.

God Bless You, Terry Jones

The Right Reverend Scrotum-breath has called off his Bonfire of the Quranities. We'd like to take credit for his change of heart. So we will! (Hey, you'd rather think of him as having a semblance of humanity?)

Our favorite part of the story is that Jones claims he called off his protest because the imam of the "Ground Zero" mosque agreed to relocate from the "holy ground" surrounding the World Trade Center site. Yeah. Right. So impassioned pleas--not all of which were wholly deranged--from a wide variety of politicians, civic groups, other public figures, and assorted average citizens met with stony indifference and/or callous rejection. But an unhinged xenophobe threatens to burn a few holy books and those Muslims are a-headin' for the hills!

For the record, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf denies that any such deal is in place.

Lest you have any doubts about Jones' sincerity, he has not only abandoned plans for International Burn a Quran Day, but he has made a heartfelt plea to all his potential emulators:

"We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans," Jones said. "We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that."

Oh, great! Now what are we supposed to do with the trunkload of Qurans we bought?!? Wait. . . Hold on. The quote continues:

". . . . We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it" (emphasis added).

Whew! So, fingers crossed! Here's hoping we get to burn us some Qurans (look at that spelling! Does that seem Amurrrican to you?) sometime soon!

Still, what are we going to do on Saturday night? Guess we'll check out what the Klan's up to. Yee-hah!

The Brewing Pogrom II

At the risk of superfluity, we must express our outrage towards Pastor Terry Jones (our least favorite member of Monty Python) and his Church of the Grizzled Hick or whatever the hell they call themselves. In case you haven't heard, Jones has decided to "honor" the memory of 9/11 with a celebratory bonfire of Korans.

Yeah, that'll show Osama that he's got the wrong idea about Americans.

Of course, convincing Osama is not really part of the agenda. Or maybe it is--the fact is, we are clueless as to what, exactly, Jones hopes to accomplish.

OK, we're not clueless. We know what Jones hopes to accomplish. Smoking pyres of Korans will lead to smoking pyres of mosques--or, we can only hope, Muslims! Of course, being a good man of God, Jones would be shocked--shocked!--were his actions to lead to such violence. Not that he'd complain.

Members of the administration and the military are appealing to Jones' sense of patriotism to get him to call off his pogrom; they say that this inflammatory action will, well, inflame the masses in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, and could put young Americans at risk. Frankly, we find this argument disingenuous. After all, our young soldiers are already at risk, and we doubt the repugnant actions of a sociopath will increase their danger to any appreciable degree.

If anything, we fear the attention paid Jones by the politicians and generals somehow legitimizes him--somehow sends the message to the Islamic world that this guy actually speaks for America and so must be silenced. These requests ultimately put Jones in a win-win situation: If he burns the Koran, he has stood up to the limp-wristed powers-that-be; if he backs down, he gets to claim that he is only doing so out of consideration for our troops.

(If Jones is so militantly anti-Islamic, by the way, why doesn't he strap on some body armor and go fight the Jihadi where they live? Oh, right, that would require actual courage.)

We feel helpless right now. We raise our voice and scream, we encourage our Facebook friends and others to denounce Pastor Jones and his congregation of hate, but we know we're largely preaching to the converted. What we would love to see is NOT Terry Jones backing down in a pseudo-show of civic-mindedness. In our fantasy, we imagine Jones standing in front of a bonfire of Korans, surrounded by his whooping, dribbling, leering pack of semi-human jackals--all of whom should have their names and images published in as many outlets as possible (hey, wouldn't they be proud to have their "patriotism" so acknowledged)--and, beyond them, watching silently and with dignity, thousands upon thousands of real Americans, saying a silent prayer for the future of this country.

(Picture of the schmuck from Google)