Meet Imam Rauf, Liberal Icon

by Scott Italiaander

The man of the moment for virtually the New York Times  and the entire New York-based elite media is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the promoter of the Cordoba Initiative Mosque--oops, I mean Park51 "community center"-- near Ground Zero.   So busy are they defending the religious freedom of Imam Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan (never mind the fact that not one critic of the proposed project--NOT ONE--has challenged it on religious grounds), and attacking mosque opponents (except for Harry Reid and Howard Dean, who are given a pass) as intolerant Islamophobes, the legacy media has willfully avoided asking questions about the political views or the character of the promoters themselves. 

Well,  across the Hudson River from the New York Times building--worldwide headquarters of erudite opinion-- the editors of the Bergen County Record have found the time and energy to do a little digging, and found that the good Imam owns several taxpayer-subsidized apartments in northern New Jersey which are, shall we say, not exactly maintained as luxury flats

In conjunction with others, Rauf is now taking on the largest project of his life with a track record showing that, despite government subsidies, he has had trouble maintaining small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City.  Page after page of municipal health records examined by The Record show repeated complaints ranging from failure to pick up garbage, to rat and bedbug infestations and no heat and hot water...

Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”  

She finds it hard to believe Rauf’s going to build a world-class Islamic community center, with fitness facilities, auditorium, restaurant, library, culinary school and art studios, as well as a Sept. 11 memorial and space for Muslim prayer services.

“He can’t even repair the bells in the hallway. He doesn’t take care of his properties. But he’s going to take care of a mosque?

The Record asked for a response from Daisy Khan, who replied that the Imam's track record as a landlord has no bearing on his promotion of the mosque. “He invests in real estate, much as someone would invest in stocks, bonds or other assets to secure one’s future and provide an income stream. He has dedicated his life to helping others working as an Imam.”  By suggesting that her husband is merely a passive investor in a variety of assets, Khan is unwittingly confirming the allegations of the Imam's New Jersey tenants, to wit: the Imam's "passivity" seems to extend to taking care of his properties for the people who pay him (i.e., the tenants and the taxpayers who subsidize them) to do so.

Whatever this says about his fitness to run the mosque project, it gives the lie to any claims by Daisy or the Imam that Muslims in general and the Rauf-Khans in particular have suffered from anti-Muslim discrimination.  By apparently securing millions in taxpayer funding for renovations that he either never completed or failed to maintain, the Imam seems to have reaped the benefits enjoyed by many a big-city slumlord and political operator--slurping at the government trough while flipping the bird to the rest of us.

If indeed the taxpayers of New York subsidize $70 million in tax-exempt industrial bonds to help finance the Ground Zero mosque  as reported Friday, then Imam Rauf's taxpayer ripoffs in New Jersey will seem like child's play.

Jesse Jackson could learn a few things about public extortion from Imam Rauf.

Judea Pearl: Why I am Against the G.Z. Mosque

Daniel Pearl's father, Judea, a professor at UCLA and the president of a foundation named in Daniel's memory, weighs in on the Ground Zero mosque controversy.  Professor Pearl stands with the vast majority of Americans who oppose the mosque for reasons having nothing to do with the denial of religious freedom. In a sense, Pearl  blames America for the status of so-called "moderate" Muslims in this country:

[We] have not helped Muslims in the confidence-building process. Treating homegrown terror acts as isolated incidents of psychological disturbances while denying their ideological roots has given American Muslim leaders the illusion that they can achieve public acceptance without engaging in serious introspection and responsibility sharing for allowing victimhood, anger and entitlement to spawn such acts.


Yes, America is to blame for the plight of Muslims, asserts Pearl, but not in the way that the pro-Mosque grievance-mongers would have you think.  By bending over backwards to appease Muslim sensibilities we have encouraged American Muslims to think that they are owed respect and legitimacy without being held accountable for their words and deeds, or their silence in the face of the words and deeds of their more extreme co-religionists.

I believe when it comes to "moral authority," Mr. Pearl has more of it in spades than do those on the other side of the Mosque divide.  He should be listened to.

Marco Rubio (R-Fl) for Senate

Anyone gotta a problem with this? Cause I sure don't....

Rosett: Imam Cashing In on Ground Zero

The following article by Claudia Rosett appeared today on Forbes.com:


Freedom's Edge
Cashing In On Ground Zero


Among the prime planners of a $100 million Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero, it's not just Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is visiting the Middle East this summer at U.S. taxpayer expense. The State Department is also about to send Rauf's wife and Cordoba Initiative fellow director, Daisy Khan, on her own taxpayer-funded "public diplomacy" trip to the United Arab Emirates. Khan is scheduled to visit the UAE from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2, overlapping there with Rauf, for whom it will be the final leg of a three-country trip including Bahrain and Qatar.

The U.S. Embassy in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi has posted on its website an announcement of the impending visit by this husband-wife team. Rauf and Khan will be there, the announcement says, "to engage foreign audiences and build people-to-people ties" and to "discuss their experiences as Muslims living and working in the United States."

What might their discussions entail? Rauf, since his Cordoba Initiative's Ground Zero mosque project triggered a national uproar, has spent the summer as an enigma. Before embarking on his State-sponsored tour, he walled himself off for weeks in Malaysia, where he has longstanding ties and keeps an office. His Cordoba website now features a note that Rauf could not be available (apparently not even by phone) to explain himself to the people of New York because "he travels the world in his life-long endeavor to bring the message of moderation, peace and understanding to both Western and Islamic countries."

In Rauf's absence, Daisy Khan has been speaking prolifically from New York about the Cordoba House mega-mosque project (which the developer recently re-dubbed Park 51, and the Cordoba House is now describing as a "community center"). Her message, like the name of the project, has been morphing at speed. When Rauf and Khan won approval for their 15-story mosque-topped Cordoba House from a Manhattan community board this spring, they advertised their project as all about doing their part for harmony and healing near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.

When it turned out that a majority of New Yorkers, and Americans generally, think this project is more like rubbing salt in a wound, Khan shifted focus. She's now talking about the Cordoba project as a test of American religious tolerance. If a majority of Americans--cognizant that the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out by Muslims, in the name of Islam--think it's inappropriate to stage that test near the edge of Ground Zero, Khan's retort is that they must be bigots. In an interview last week with the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, she lamented: "When will Muslims be accepted as plain old Americans?"

On Sunday, interviewed on ABC TV's This Week by Christiane Amanpour, Khan ratcheted up her complaints. Amanpour asked, "Is America Islamophobic?"

Khan replied, "It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia. It's hate of Muslims."

For the State Department to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars sending someone with those views on a "public diplomacy" trip to the Middle East is a curious exercise. Rauf's trip is costing $16,000. Khan's will cost $12,000. If Khan will be collecting the same $496 per diem that Rauf will be getting in Abu Dhabi, this will include a joint $982 per day for creature comforts, as Khan spreads her opinions about Muslim life in America--and builds people-to-people ties in an Islamic state loaded with billions in oil wealth. State has told Rauf and Khan to refrain from conducting "personal business" while rubbing shoulders on the taxpayer dime, but how they follow up on any of those ties is presumably up to them.

A broader issue here is why Daisy Khan, self-proclaimed healer and bridge-builder of Ground Zero, is now styling herself as an aggrieved victim. America has delivered to both Rauf and Khan a life in which they have freely practiced their religion and been free to convert others--including a sister-in-law of their real-estate partner, Sharif El-Gamal. Both arrived in this country as immigrants, and had conferred upon them the full panoply of American rights and freedoms.

Rauf is of Egyptian descent, born in Kuwait. Khan hails from India's Islamist hotbed of Kashmir. Rauf by his own account has held forth for more than 20 years at the Al-Farah mosque in lower Manhattan (there has been no outcry for the removal of mosques already extant in the area on Sept. 11; the issue is their plan to build a new one, provocatively close to the site of the destroyed Twin Towers). Rauf sits on the board of trustees of the Islamic Center of New York, a large facility established on Manhattan's Upper East Side by his father, who also ran a big Islamic center in Washington. Rauf serves as an advisor to the Interfaith Center of New York, and, like Khan, has been welcomed to spread his messages by a long list of foundations and institutions, including Jewish centers, churches and schools. Under both the Bush and Obama administrations, Rauf has been tapped for three previous taxpayer-funded "outreach" jaunts to the Middle East, two in 2007 and a third earlier this year.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, far from being shunned as Muslims, Rauf and Khan have enjoyed a boom business in "outreach." Their lifestyle includes at least two homes in the U.S. and one in Malaysia, fancy cars and pricey clothes. Last October, in an article headlined "High Five With Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf," Forbes chronicled the imam's pleasure in driving a Lexus GS400. Rauf also detailed how he enjoys Armani and Brioni suits, his wife likes her cashmere scarves, and he mentioned his fondness for handcrafted Persian rugs, especially those woven of silk. He added that he owns about 15 carpets dispersed between his homes in New Jersey and New York, and another 15 carpets "at my home in Malaysia."

As for bigotry in America, the FBI in its most recent report on "Hate Crime Statistics," released in 2008, does point to a group more victimized than any other, targets of 65.7% of all reported religious hate crimes. Those people are not Muslims, but Jews, victims of almost eight times as many hate crimes.

For Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, Ground Zero has become a bonanza. Since their plans hit the headlines this spring, they have achieved celebrity status on a scale that millions in advertising, or less abrasive "outreach" efforts, could not buy. Their names are all over the news. Their project has become a fixture on the summer talk shows. In the escalating furor, along with the criticisms , they have received de facto endorsements from such prominent folks as New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama (whose supportive remarks about their project, delivered at an Aug. 13 Iftar dinner at the White House, are now featured on U.S. embassy websites worldwide; but whose later waffling is not). Their real-estate partner, El-Gamal, has told the press, "This might become the most famous community center in the world." Whatever comes of this, Rauf, Khan and El-Gamal are likely to dine out on it--and well--for a long time.

And make no mistake. While the Cordoba Initiative is now implying on its website that the mosque and Islamic center is mainly about serving a neighborhood, and "is not located at Ground Zero," Rauf himself told a very different tale to the New York Times last December. Back then, Rauf said the location's chief attraction was its proximity to Ground Zero--so close that it is, as he noted, "Where a piece of the wreckage fell." In Rauf's view, that made for an ideal venue to make "the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11."

A majority of Americans then dared to disagree with this particular prescription of the self-described "Founder and Visionary" of the Cordoba Initiative. And now, the televised statement reverberating from Khan--on the eve of her $12,000 taxpayer-funded trip to join Rauf in the marble halls of Abu Dhabi and Dubai--is a denunciation of America as a Muslim-hating place, "beyond Islamophobia."

What's going on here is not a gauge of American religious tolerance. It has become a test of the extent to which Rauf, Khan, and their partners and donors, seen or unseen, are willing for their own aggrandizement to cash in on the agonies of Ground Zero. In this scheme, the thousands of Americans murdered on Sept. 11 in the name of Islam have by now become a backdrop for Daisy Khan's claim that she is the victim of a Muslim-hating America. There's an old name for this kind of stunt, and it isn't bridge-building. It's carpet-bagging.

Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.

Hanging the Dems on their own Race Chad.

The Democrats New/Old Southern Strategy

By Scott Wheeler & Buckley Carlson, from the National Republican Trust

As many have known for years and warned frequently, the Democratic Party strategy of race-baiting was merely a tactic to gain political power for their White leadership. Sound really cynical? Take a look at the new strategy. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes.  And so, too, do deeply-rooted, institutional policies reflective of a rotten core...like the Democratic Party's harboring of bold racial animus and disdain while claiming the mantle of "diversity," and at the same time, employing the most overtly divisive racial political strategies seen in this country during the past 60 years.

If not for racism, how else to account for the pervasive corruption in the Democratic party, and yet, under the authority of the Democrat-controlled Office of Congressional Ethics, only one White member is under investigation, while at least eight Black members are?  Coincidence?  Seems unlikely.

Chris Dodd.  Barney Frank.  Nancy Pelosi.  Jim Moran.  These are just some of the names that swiftly percolate to the surface during any man-on-the-street interview with regular Americans when you ask their views on corrupt politicians.  And yet, not a one of them is currently under investigation by the Democrat-controlled Office of Congressional Ethics.

So, what is it, exactly, that differentiates those members of the Democratic Party from, say, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Melvin Watt, or Jesse Jackson, Jr., all of whom are currently enjoying "official, enhanced scrutiny"?  Time in office? Power at hand? Intelligence? Good luck?  Or, have they garnered special treatment simply because of the color of their skin?

Seem far-fetched? Here is how Democrat cheerleader Froma Harrop described Pelosi's strategy in her Real Clear Politics column:

"That the Democrats under the microscope -- New York Rep. Charles B. Rangel and California Rep. Maxine Waters -- are both black only underscores the seriousness with which the Democratic leadership supports a new set of standards for conduct."

In the 45 years since the inception of Civil Rights legislation in America, Democrats have taken Blacks from the back of the Democrat bus, propelled them up to the front of the bus when the microphones and the cameras were in evidence - festooning their likeness throughout - and then chucked them unceremoniously under the bus in order to get back what they consider their lost redneck voters.  And yet, this is the political party that consistently "earns" over 90% of Black support at the polls?

Nancy Pelosi, who famously claimed to an un-skeptical press corps that she was going to "drain the swamp" of Washington corruption, has turned into the Creature from the Black Lagoon, mossy barnacles of corruption affixed to all but the surgically-enhanced square inches of her tight visage.  The Democrats' ranks are literally rife with corruption; even a limp-wristed, blind swing of the piñata paddle would yield burst pustules of theft, bribes, and lies.  And yet, Pelosi's efforts have yielded no white members, while ensnaring a full 38% of the Congressional Black Caucus.

According to David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner, "PMA was shut down last year and raided by the FBI in the wake of several reports that its employees and clients were allegedly trading contributions for hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks from certain members of Congress. This accusation has never been proven, and the Office of Congressional Ethics dropped its investigation last year." An investigation that would have netted half a dozen or so White Democrats for allegedly taking millions of dollars in bribes, making what Rangel and Jefferson had done look like petty theft by comparison, until that investigation was shut down by the very same "office of Congressional Ethics" that has taken up investigating Black Democrats, at a very suspicious time- right before the November elections.

Pelosi isn't draining the swamp, she is holding Rangel's and Water's heads under the swamp water. According to the guidelines as established and aggressively heralded by Pelosi and the Liberal Left, the Democratic Party is guilty, at minimum, of "racial profiling"...of the kind they routinely accuse our nation's police of employing.  At a minimum.

But, if we apply the same standards that Pelosi and the Liberal Left force American private businesses to adhere to, then what we are witness to is racism, pure and simple.  If this was an affirmative action case, does anyone doubt that the evidence as presented would lead to a conviction?

To believe otherwise makes one a racist by Democrat standards.  This is what they have demanded from the rest of us for years.

If you run a company and your employee base does not reflect the "racial make-up" of the community in which you are located, regardless of who has applied to work there?  The verdict is swift and clear: Racial Discrimination!

If law enforcement arrests a disproportionate number of minorities?  Again, the "evidence" is incontrovertible: Racial Discrimination!

So, if the Democratic Party engages in a "comprehensive effort" to rid its own body of corruption - a body that has long emitted the sights, sounds, smell of corruption - and then identifies ONLY Black members, when they represent just a small percentage of the total?  Well, apply the Democratic Party Racial Calculus, and you can only conclude: Institutional Racism!

Democratic Party racism aside, we're not suggesting that Rangel, Waters, William Jefferson, etc. have been vindicated.  But we think it's clear they were under the delusion that they, too, were free to participate in the wanton looting that has always firmly - if sort of quietly - defined the soul- the rich, White liberal soul of the Democratic Party.  It is now clear that they were never part of the "elite," and that no one bothered to tell them that "carte blanche" in the Democratic Party is delineated with a "hard c", as in blanc, for white...In other words, you DO get a free pass, IF you're rich, WHITE, and liberal.

Pelosi and the Democratic Party have wielded the racial baton for years, silencing dissent, undermining opposition, engaging in the most egregious of personal attacks, and always for political ends.  And most often without even the slightest morsel of evidence.

"Evidence" was never important; THEY were the arbiters of racism.  In fact, how often does one hear that charge of racism now?  How about every time a conservative defends States Rights...declares affection for the 10th Amendment...or displays opposition to ObamaCare?

But perhaps the Democrats' favorite tactic - aided and abetted by a sympathetic, sycophantic media - has always featured the slander of "unintentional racism," meaning someone could be guilty of racism, but not even conscious of it.  Although slightly mitigating - "2nd Degree Murder", anyone? - this was also the most insidious of charges, because by it's very nature it could not be accounted for...or defended against.

Well, Pelosi and her liberal leadership are guilty of much worse than even "unintentional racism."  Their racism is active, passionate, and very much pre-meditated.  In fact, it's part of a much larger strategy to win back key Southern political districts.  Abhorrent, for sure.  But also risky: will the Democrats' strategy of hanging their Black members out as bait bring back their historically racist caucus?  Does that constituency even exist anymore?  And can the media, the Congressional Black Caucus, and concerned Americans everywhere tolerate this disgusting racism any longer?  We thought this type of politics - surely the "Politics As Usual" historically practiced by the Democratic Party, and subsequently decried by its leader - were relics of the past.  They sure should be.

The "Ground Zero Mosque"

From the editors of Redstate.com.