Update: What Moderate Muslim Bridge Building Looks Like: FYNQ.

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Update: Fred Thompson on Obama's shark-jump weekend.

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Hmmm...

Sources in New York said on Monday that Muslim religious and business leaders will announce plans to abandon the project in the next few days.

New York Governor David Patterson said last weekend that Muslim leaders had rejected outright his proposal tto swap the site in for another in Manhattan.

But several people familiar with the debate among New York's Islamic activists now claim that the leaders are convinced abandoning the site is preferable to unleashing a wave of bitterness towards Muslims.

Via Jim Nolte's Twitter feed.

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (238)
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"With impeccable timing," tweets DrewM in his must-follow feed.

Indeed, there is no pecking at this timing. It's perfect.

Sen. Robert Menendez, who is leading the Democrats' campaign to retain control of the U.S. Senate, this morning said Republicans are only jeopardizing their political chances by trying to score political points from the controversy surrounding the proposed construction of a mosque near the Manhattan site of the 9/11 terror attacks.

"There is a price to be paid," Menendez (D-N.J.) said in an interview after a news conference in Garfield. "When I think of the Constitution and the oath I took, it is to support Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, Muslim and Christian. It doesn't have a limitation to it. I think it's incredibly dangerous for them to move down this path and it undermines a lot of their other arguments about the Constitution and the preservation of the Constitution and the importance of the Constitution and all of the rights that are derived from it. If they constantly talk about the motto of 'let's save our Constitution,' well here we go let's save it."

Not up for "saving the Constitution"? Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Hey Harry-- if you just got reelected 18 months ago, would you have this same position? Or would it be more like not-up-this-year Menendez'?

Posted by: Ace at 12:46 PM | Comments (127)
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Six years is a pretty lengthy rectal exam, and they couldn't even find a fracking polyp they could have snipped so they could "declare victory" and whack him with some fine?

That's some pretty weak shit. Moonbat heads must be exploding everywhere.

If Delay manages to skate on the TX state charges as well, it'll be a clean sweep, and he could rightfully claim to be a victim of political persecution.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 12:22 PM | Comments (59)
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Yeah, easy to predict, but I did predict it, so I'll take that.

JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s future in the not-so-friendly skies might be up in the air – but he’s reportedly already landed a reality TV offer to help other people quit their jobs.

According to TMZ, Slater, who skyrocketed to fame last week after exiting a plane via the emergency chute – (but not before cursing at passengers and grabbing two beers for the ride) – is being pursued by Stone Entertainment to host a show about fellow fed-up employees quitting their jobs in creative ways.

SlaterÂ’s lawyer has reportedly received the offer, but no word if he is interested in working the reality TV route.

And the title? Well, my prediction of I've Had It! with Steve Slater can work.

Thanks to Dr. Spank.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (61)
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Three days was already a short amount of time to make the point he supposedly sought to make before booking off to Martha's Vinyard, where he really wanted to be.

Instead of that brief three days, he spent... all of 26 hours.

Message to the nation: The Gulf's sort of okay if you're on a budget, but where you really want to be is Martha's Vinyard.

Martha's Vineyard

No oil, no smoke, no pollution, no industry, no dirty blue-collar ruffians...

We haven't actually produced anything here for 100 years, not even vineyards, nothing at all except for extramarital affairs and Herpes panics.

And that's what makes us so terrific, and so attractive to our fellow liberals.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (71)
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If President Obama has shown such "courage" and "leadership" on the mosque issue -- as Christiana Amanapour's handpicked sedition monkeys all agree -- then what does this make Harry Reid, who's actually running for election in November?

Is this an example of "courage" and "leadership" as well? Are all Democrats courageous leaders even when they disagree?

Reid spokesman: "First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Sen Reid respects that but thinks .. mosque should be built someplace else"

Meanwhile, Ross Douthat writes about the mosque, but he of course has to accuse its opponents of xenophobia... even as he agrees with him.

Oh well, he does get to the right conclusion after calling himself a xenophobe for concluding it.

This is typical of how these debates usually play out. The first America tends to make the finer-sounding speeches, and the second America often strikes cruder, more xenophobic notes. The first America welcomed the poor, the tired, the huddled masses; the second America demanded that they change their names and drop their native languages, and often threw up hurdles to stop them coming altogether. The first America celebrated religious liberty; the second America persecuted Mormons and discriminated against Catholics.

But both understandings of this country have real wisdom to offer, and both have been necessary to the American experimentÂ’s success...

So it is today with Islam. The first America is correct to insist on Muslims’ absolute right to build and worship where they wish. But the second America is right to press for something more from Muslim Americans — particularly from figures like Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the mosque — than simple protestations of good faith.

Too often, American Muslim institutions have turned out to be entangled with ideas and groups that most Americans rightly consider beyond the pale. Too often, American Muslim leaders strike ambiguous notes when asked to disassociate themselves completely from illiberal causes.

By global standards, Rauf may be the model of a “moderate Muslim.” But global standards and American standards are different. For Muslim Americans to integrate fully into our national life, they’ll need leaders who don’t describe America as “an accessory to the crime” of 9/11 (as Rauf did shortly after the 2001 attacks), or duck questions about whether groups like Hamas count as terrorist organizations (as Rauf did in a radio interview in June). And they’ll need leaders whose antennas are sensitive enough to recognize that the quest for inter-religious dialogue is ill served by throwing up a high-profile mosque two blocks from the site of a mass murder committed in the name of Islam.

TheyÂ’ll need leaders, in other words, who understand that while the ideals of the first America protect the e pluribus, itÂ’s the demands the second America makes of new arrivals that help create the unum.

One point I'd like to make: The Muslims building this vow that they are not deliberately giving any offense, and yet, when it's pointed out that great offense is in fact being taken, they essentially say "FYNQ." That does seem then to be deliberately attempting to give offense and be provocative and trimphalist.

Another point: The elites -- elites? Let's call them what they are; the revolutionary vanguard -- the revolutionary vanguard is fond of questioning the motives of the great number of Americans who are opposed to the Victory mosque, and assigning them them worst possible motives.

And yet where are their suspicions about the motives of the mosque's builders? Their motives they take at face value, claiming they know as a fact that these are "moderates" interested in "bridge building" despite the fact they do so in a supremely insulting and haughty manner.

No questions about their motives? Only one side's motives deserve the scrutiny of the press? Only one side's motives may be attributed to malice or other base desires, such as payback and taunting?

All of us opposed are bigots and Muslim-hating? All of us? Including a majority of Democrats?

A proposed mosque to be built two blocks from the World Trade Center has little support nationwide, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll suggests.

According to the new survey out Wednesday, nearly 70 percent of all Americans oppose the controversial plan to build the mosque just blocks away from the solemn site in lower Manhattan while just 29 percent favor the construction.

Broken down by party affiliation, 54 percent of Democrats oppose the plans while 82 percent of Republicans disapprove. Meanwhile, 70 percent of independents said they are against the proposal.

The poll also showed opposition did not vary widely by age.

Are all of us bigots? Or do most of us simply question the supposed "bridge building" motive of building a mosque which has the actual effect of burning bridges? Maybe some of us are wise enough to reason backwards from effect to intent: If this has the effect of rubbing salt in the wounds of America, maybe that was the intent all along.

But no; the Hamas-supporting, America-blaming, Osama-excusing Imam Rauf says a few pretty words about "moderation" and we troglodytic thugs are just too stupid to assume that of course he must be telling the truth.

Why would we think he could possibly lie? He's not Christian, after all, nor white.

Thanks to tips from DrewM. and Slublog.

All of the President's Straw Men: At Neo-Neocon.

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 AM | Comments (72)
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An unconventional candidate, to be sure.

Check out the video in the upper right.

It's odd, but the media is portraying it as worse than it is. Greene was trying to drown out their interview of his brother by howling "Nooooooo! Goooooooo!" Okay, weird. But his point was clear: He was trying to ruin their interview after already having asked them to depart his property. (Well, his dad's, or whoever's.)

So... Okay, yeah it's weird. I guess I'm just noting that the media has finally found a Democrat they can really go after, and they're doing so because they want him out of the race so a Democrat with a chance of winning may enter in his place.

I guess this is really a persnickety claim of bias: yeah, the howling like an animal isn't exactly normal.

You know what? Forget my attempt to make some greater point. It's just weird, that's what it is.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (100)
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This isn't my screw-up, really-- I didn't take an old poll, fail to check the date, and post on it.

The AP did. I (and a lot of other people) cited the AP's story on Obama losing Independents yesterday. Like the Hill, and, citing the Hill, Instapundit.

But the AP... was citing a June 9-14 poll as if it were new. And actually, it included results from previous months, too.

When I saw a shorter, earlier version of the referenced AP report this morning, it didn't mention when AP's polling arm AP-GfK Roper had done their work. When I went to the polling home page and found that the most recent entries were from June 9-14, I figured I'd come back later and give the group time to post fresh underlying details.

Little did I know that AP's gaggle of writers were treating the June 9-14 "Poll Politics Topline" as fresh. It gets worse. It turns out that Fram, Tompson et al wasted about 875 words on a report based on polling data that gave equal weights to results from mid-June, mid-May, and mid-April.

So that's the AP's idea of rigorous fact-checking and up-to-the-minute newsworthy reportage.

So, that whole poll? Yeah, it's gotten worse since then.

I know this isn't really super-important on its own but since I quoted that poll I thought I'd better put this up prominently.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (36)
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This fast.

I recall a week or so ago when Obama was in Texas, one Democrat candidate was conspicuously missing (Bill White, running for Gov).

Not that I blame him.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 10:19 AM | Comments (52)
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Historic. Unprecedented.

Yesterday's track had it 42/49. Today's track: 42/50. (That's the front page of Gallup, where today's poll is noted at top left; if you click through, it's still yesterday's 42/49 chart.)

Last week, a Gallup analysis showed that, since '46, when the POTUS is above 50% approval, their party loses an average of 14 seats in the House in the midterm elections, compared with an average loss of 36 seats when the POTUS' job approval is below 50%.

This will not be an average midterm.

Clarified: There is always a problem when I say "For first time," as it's unclear if I mean the first time in Obama's term or the first time ever.

I almost always mean the first time in Obama's term. I mean, Nixon's numbers were hard to touch, eh?

I have clarified the headline.

But as a general matter, when I'm unclear: I mean for the first time on Obama's watch. Same thing with "record low" or "near record low." If I mean something more expansive, like for the first time in Gallup's polling history, I'll call that out.

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (154)
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