Obama is Right About the Mosque Near Ground Zero

President Obama has gotten himself into some hot water with comments he made last night about the right of Muslims to build a mosque near ground zero. Far be it from me to defend this S.O.B. in anything -- but he is right in this case. Let's get the fact said and out of the way that it is puzzling and dismaying that there are some Muslims who actually want to build a mosque near a place of shame that has been psychologically attached to their religion among the population as a whole by a relative handful of so-called "jihadists". And there is no need to explain yet again that, no thanks to Obama and his far-left administration and supporters, we still have freedom of religion in this country, at least for the time being.  (I will reluctantly pass over for now the immoral compromise of so-called "Catholic" educators and health care professionals by the glib sloganeering of the administration and its supporters and the willing incomprehension of these "Catholic" Obama supporters.) That freedom of religion makes it practically impossible and, perhaps, wrong to oppose the building of such a mosque.

The most moderate and most convincing argument I've read yet for opposing this group of Muslims in their project has been, naturally enough, the latest Friday Charles Krauthammer column in the Washington Post. The historical citation with which he lost me was the attempted link with the expulsion of the Carmelite nuns years from Auschwitz years ago. Krauthammer's attempted assertion of equivalence is unfortunate and wrong. A few years ago, Pope John Paul the Great had to roll his eyes and request the evacuation of the nuns from the Auschwitz site because some Jewish people were enraged by their presence. Krauthammer says that while it was possible for the Catholic nuns to be there, praying for the souls of the people murdered there, it wasn't right for them to be there. Two points: Krauthammer is asserting an equivalence between the Muslims, rightly or wrongly suspected of triumphalism by wanting to build a mosque near Ground Zero, and Catholic Carmelite nuns. This is difficult to take seriously. Second, he is blind to the fact that many people died at Auschwitz for who and what they were and it is (also) outrageous to arrogate a totality, as opposed to a preponderance, of victimhood by any one group. (It is worth pointing out that today, August 14, the Catholic Church observes the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe. And that August 9 is the feast day of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Both of whom were individuals in a vast sea of people who perished at Auschwitz for who or what they were.)

Before reading Krauthammer's column, normally a fresh breeze of sanity in DC, I did not know what to think about the controversy. Now I do:  Obama is right ... as much as it hurts me to say that.