A Tuesday editorial, "Who Else Will Speak Up? [1]" irresponsibly blamed two unrelated anecdotes on opposition to building a mosque at Ground Zero. (Meanwhile, actual deadly threats from Muslim extremists go mostly unremarked upon [2] on the editorial page.)
The hate-filled signs carried recently by protesters trying to halt plans to build an Islamic center and mosque in Lower Manhattan were chilling. We were cheered to see people willing to challenge their taunts and champion tolerance and the First Amendment. But opportunistic politicians are continuing to foment this noxious anger. It is a dangerous pursuit.
Already New Yorkers have seen a troubled young man slash a Muslim taxi driver with a knife. A zealot in Florida is threatening to burn a stack of Korans on the anniversary of Sept. 11. Where does this end?
Left-wing attempts to link the cab driver stabbing to the outcry against the mosque have to ignore that suspect Michael Enright volunteered for Intersections International, which promotes interfaith understanding and strongly supports the building of the mosque near the site of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
The editorial played the urban elitist card against the supposedly ignorant rabble outside New York City, praising NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg for going on Jon Stewart's show "to remind non-New Yorkers that 'there's already another mosque down there within four blocks of the World Trade Center.'"
The point is that this mosque is being specifically built (with the help of foreign funds being raised by the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on a State Department-sponsored international tour [3]) at the site of a terror attack committed in the name of Islam.