THE MOSQUE

James Taranto in WSJ's Best of the Web Today points out the real problem showing itself with the mosque controversy:


"For a project that is supposed to encourage reconciliation, though, the Ground Zero mosque is certainly stirring up a lot of hatred--among its supporters. Here's Richard Cohen in today's Washington Post:

Appearing on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," Daisy Khan, a founder of the mosque (and the wife of the imam), rejected any compromise. She was right to do so because to compromise is to accede, even a bit, to the arguments of bigots, demagogues or the merely uninformed. This is no longer her fight. The fight is now all of ours.

And here's a passage from an NPR "Morning Edition" report today, titled "Rancor Over Mosque Could Fuel Islamic Extremists":

"This, unfortunately, is playing right into their hands," said Evan F. Kohlmann, who tracks these kinds of websites and chat rooms for Flashpoint Global partners, a New York-based security firm. "Extremists are encouraging all this, with glee.

"It is their sense that by doing this that Americans are going to alienate American Muslims to the point where even relatively moderate Muslims are going to be pushed into joining extremist movements like al-Qaida. They couldn't be happier."

To Cohen, two-thirds of Americans are "bigots, demagogues or the merely uninformed." To Kohlmann, even moderate Muslims are inclined toward mass murder if they don't get their way. Both these statements are not merely bigoted but downright unhinged.

Something about this mosque project is causing--or bringing to the surface--the utter derangement of its supporters. It is ugly and disturbing to watch, and all the more reason to think the idea is a bad one."

The Genius of Shelby Steele

In the NYT today Shelby Steele explains affirmative action and why it exists. It is not why you think! His conclusion is pure genius - and should be listened to as it is coming from a successful black man. Here it is:



"Today's "black" problem is underdevelopment, not discrimination. Success in modernity will demand profound cultural changes -- changes in child-rearing, a restoration of marriage and family, a focus on academic rigor, a greater appreciation of entrepreneurialism and an embrace of individual development as the best road to group development.

Whites are embarrassed to speak forthrightly about black underdevelopment, and blacks are too proud to openly explore it for all to see. So, by unspoken
agreement, we discuss black underdevelopment in a language of discrimination and injustice. We rejoin the exhausted affirmative action debate as if it really mattered, and we do not acknowledge that this underdevelopment is primarily a black responsibility. And yet it is -- as historically unfair as it may be, as much as it seems to blame the victim. In human affairs we are responsible not just for our "just" fate, but also for our existential fate.

But continuing black underdevelopment will flush both races out of their postures and make most discussions of race in America, outside a context of development, irrelevant."



Read the entire column - it will put a lot in perspective. Challenge him - and me - particularly if you are on the left and an affirmative action fan! I look forward to the discussion.