Jerry’s Ink: Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That

One of the funniest bits on Seinfeld was the episode where a reporter thinks Jerry and George are gay. So, in a brilliant satire on political correctness, every time anyone says the word “gay,” someone adds, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

The mosque controversy is starting to resemble a Seinfeld episode. Every time anyone says the word “mosque,” it’s quickly followed with the line, “Of course, our Constitution states that they can build a mosque wherever they would like to.” This is always followed by a mumbled, “Religious freedom, you know.”

I know. We all know.

I’ve had it up to here with many of these sanctimonious twits who keep repeating this as though they have just finished reading the Constitution, and those of us who oppose the mosque are knuckle-dragging morons who never heard of the Constitution. Get this: We know they have the right to build a mosque wherever they want to—even at the site where nearly 3,000 innocent people died. We hope that they use good sense and build it somewhere else. There are two large buildings for sale on my street in New York City. I would prefer they build the mosque next door to me, rather than where they will be sticking a knife into the families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001.

And for those of you who are adamant the mosque must be built exactly on Ground Zero, please answer this one question: If, on Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the attack by 19 Islamic terrorists, at a time when the smoke and fumes from the burning rubble were filling the air and destroying the lungs and bodies of the brave rescue workers forever, this Muslim named Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf announced that, as soon as he could remove the engine of the American Airlines plane that had crashed through the roof of the building in question, he was going to build a mosque to “build a bridge of understanding between Muslims and America,” what would your reaction be?

You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to yourself.

Imam Abdallah Adhani, center, leaves a proposed site for an Islamic cultural center to speak to reporters after a Friday prayer service followed by his media adviser Tara Bohen, right, Friday, Aug. 27, 2010 in New York. The NYPD set up barrier tape in front of the building to contain members of the media. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

I’m amused by the reactions of politicians to the mosque issue. There’s our president, who is making hapless, hopeless, disastrous President Jimmy Carter look like Abraham Lincoln. First President Obama, like a professor talking to a class of dense students, lectured us on the Constitution and religious freedom and added that the mosque should be built next to Ground Zero. The next day, when he realized he was on the wrong side of a majority of the American people, he simply lied or, as they like to say, “misstated,” took it back, and said he never said where the mosque should be built, just that it should be built, which was not the issue. Now, after being ridiculed for vacillating on the issue, he is back to saying it should be built next to Ground Zero.

But President Obama is not the only politician who is having nightmares over the mosque at Ground Zero. Every morning, I check my milk carton looking for a picture of Senator Chucky Schumer. He’s disappeared since the mosque controversy started. He wants no part of it. He’s not even doing his fake Sunday slow-news-day press conferences, where he hogs the Sunday night news.

So how will it all end? Not well. I predict Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will drop all pretenses that he is doing it to build a bridge of understanding with his follow Americans and simply say he is doing it because he can do it.

Muslim male extremists, mostly between the ages of 17 and 40, have committed acts of terrorism all over the world. It didn’t end with the World Trade Center; some believe that was just the beginning. If you were in Times Square on May 1 this year, a 30-year-old American Muslim named Faisal Shahzad was trying to blow you up. Why? Because you were the wrong religion. These terrorists are everywhere. A Muslim-American Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding 31 others. Again, 99.9 percent of American Muslims are good people and they, too, must be protected from these fanatics.

Perhaps the mosque at Ground Zero will be a good thing, not because it will ever be a bridge of understanding between Muslims and other religions, but because it will serve as a constant reminder that we must never again let our guard down.

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