The Man Who Would Be King

Newt Gingrich, the purported intellectual of the presumed Republican presidential aspirants, has this to say:

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.

Brilliant. By that logic, we should stop allowing freedom of the press until they allow it in Tehran, stop having open elections until they have them in Pyonyang, and should ignore the molesting of kids until they stop doing it in the Catholic Church.

This is the guy who'd have us believe he's the cranial cream of the conservative crop, the guy with ideas, the once and future leader of the right wing. Taking his cues from Sarah Friggin Palin.

Unsurprisingly, I see it more like this:

For America to endorse the construction of the Cordoba House would be a reminder to the world of how we, unlike less-free countries, celebrate our diversity and refuse to treat our neighbors as second-class citizens. It's genuinely sad that Gingrich and his ilk prefer to see us aim lower as a nation.

What a bereft bunch they are.

[Update, 7/23: just to add a little more, oh, reality, I'll copy a couple of paragraphs from Andrew Sullivan (and add a little emphasis here and there)]:

A reader writes:

Did Newt really claim that the Cordoba House mosque would "overlook" the World Trade Center site? Rubbish. It is three blocks away and has no line of sight.

And 3,000 Americans? 3,000 human beings, mostly but by no means entirely American, as anyone in reality-based discourse knows. Another writes:

I live two blocks from Ground Zero in a six-building apartment complex with an active tenant association. As best I can tell, Cordoba House is a non-issue among local residents. I haven't heard a word from anybody on the subject - not in the elevators, not in the lobby, not at the neighborhood bars or restaurants. Nada.

Here are the facts. The proposed Cordoba House is not a mosque. It's to be a community center modeled after the YMCA and the Jewish Community Center, with most of its 13 floors devoted to classrooms, fitness and recreation - open to the entire downtown community, not just Muslims. There is to be a "prayer space" that can hold up to 2,000 people. I'll aver that "prayer space" could just be a PC term for "mosque," though I confess no knowledge of what procedures must take place to consecrate a facility as an official mosque. The group's leader, Imam Abdul Rauf, has held services in a small mosque in the neighborhood since 1983. It isn't as though the group materialized out of nowhere or has no history in the neighborhood.