The "M" Word
by digby
Josh Marshall caught an exchange with Andrea Mitchell and James Zogby this morning that made my blood boil. The church of the savvy is full of foolish and hideous dogma, but the parts that insist you ignore the forest for the trees are the most frustrating.
This is one of them:
Speaking just now on MSNBC James Zogby made a very good point -- and pressed Andrea Mitchell on it. His point was that sure, this Pastor Jones fool is one guy, who's managed to get worldwide attention for his stunt. But you cannot separate him, as I noted below, from the whole climate of hate speech and anti-Muslim agitation from the Newt Gingriches and the Sarah Palins and the rest of them.
At that point, Mitchell jumped in and said, wait, Palin said she disagrees with the Koran burning. To which Zogby replied, something to the effect of 'C'mon'. And that's just the right reply. This is the standard approach of race haters and demagogues. They keep stirring the pot, churning out demonizing rhetoric and hate speech. Then some marginal figure does something nuts and suddenly ... oh, wait, I didn't mean burn Korans. Where'd you get that idea from? We were just saying that Islam is a violent, anti-American religion and that American Muslims should stop building their mosques and focus on apologizing for 9/11 and maybe get out of America. But burn the Koran? No way.
It's also important to note the context: this didn't happen during the first eight years after 9/11 when George W. Bush was in the White House. The drumbeat of hatred for the secret Muslim African American socialist Democrat in the White House who's selling out the country to the terrorists goes hand in hand with the general Muslim bashing. It's all part of the same thing.
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