Christie: Both sides playing politics, don't paint all Muslims as 'radical'

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

This is from Gov. Chris Christie at a press conference earlier today, weighing in with his first words on the ground zero-area mosque — and basically saying a pox on the houses of both political parties.

The longtime federal prosecutor also urges people to take caution and not paint "all of Islam" as extremists.

Christie is not only a rising star among Republicans and many conservatives, but he also has partial control of the World Trade Center site because it's owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, giving his voice more weight than many.

Here's my rough transcript of Christie:

"Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey, I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account. Just because it’s nearly nine years later, those sensitivities cannot and should not be ignored. On the other hand, we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush. ...We have to bring people together. And what offends me the most about all this, is that it’s being used as a political football by both parties. And what disturbs me about the president's remarks is that he is now using it as a political football as well. I think the president of the United State should rise above that. And should not be using this as a political football, and I don’t believe that it would be responsible of me to get involved and comment on this any further because it just put me in the same political arena as all of them.

"My principles on this are two-fold. One, that we have to acknowledge, respect and give some measure of deference to the feelings of the family members who lost their loved ones there that day. But it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans. But beyond that ... I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of candidly what I think some Republicans are guilty of, and the president is now, the president is guilty of, of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it."
________

Chris Christie, acting like an adult in the mosque debate. Would that more politicians would follow his lead.

[Valin]

Politico:

 

This is from Gov. Chris Christie at a press conference earlier today, weighing in with his first words on the ground zero-area mosque — and basically saying a pox on the houses of both political parties.

 

The longtime federal prosecutor also urges people to take caution and not paint "all of Islam" as extremists.

 

Christie is not only a rising star among Republicans and many conservatives, but he also has partial control of the World Trade Center site because it's owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, giving his voice more weight than many.

 

Here's my rough transcript of Christie:

 

"Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey, I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account. Just because it’s nearly nine years later, those sensitivities cannot and should not be ignored. On the other hand, we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush. ...We have to bring people together. And what offends me the most about all this, is that it’s being used as a political football by both parties. And what disturbs me about the president's remarks is that he is now using it as a political football as well. I think the president of the United State should rise above that. And should not be using this as a political football, and I don’t believe that it would be responsible of me to get involved and comment on this any further because it just put me in the same political arena as all of them.

 

"My principles on this are two-fold. One, that we have to acknowledge, respect and give some measure of deference to the feelings of the family members who lost their loved ones there that day. But it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans. But beyond that ... I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of candidly what I think some Republicans are guilty of, and the president is now, the president is guilty of, of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it."

________

 

Chris Christie, acting like an adult in the mosque debate. Would that more politicians would follow his lead.

 

 

To the Nuke Mecca Crowd at Freerepublic and Robert Spencer types I say....

 

how shall I put this so there is no misunderstanding.....?

 

 

 

DON'T BE ON MY SIDE!!!

[Sanguine]

[kevindavis]

Politico:

 

This is from Gov. Chris Christie at a press conference earlier today, weighing in with his first words on the ground zero-area mosque — and basically saying a pox on the houses of both political parties.

 

The longtime federal prosecutor also urges people to take caution and not paint "all of Islam" as extremists.

 

Christie is not only a rising star among Republicans and many conservatives, but he also has partial control of the World Trade Center site because it's owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, giving his voice more weight than many.

 

Here's my rough transcript of Christie:

 

"Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey, I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account. Just because it’s nearly nine years later, those sensitivities cannot and should not be ignored. On the other hand, we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush. ...We have to bring people together. And what offends me the most about all this, is that it’s being used as a political football by both parties. And what disturbs me about the president's remarks is that he is now using it as a political football as well. I think the president of the United State should rise above that. And should not be using this as a political football, and I don’t believe that it would be responsible of me to get involved and comment on this any further because it just put me in the same political arena as all of them.

 

"My principles on this are two-fold. One, that we have to acknowledge, respect and give some measure of deference to the feelings of the family members who lost their loved ones there that day. But it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans. But beyond that ... I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of candidly what I think some Republicans are guilty of, and the president is now, the president is guilty of, of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it."

________

 

Chris Christie, acting like an adult in the mosque debate. Would that more politicians would follow his lead.

 

 

To the Nuke Mecca Crowd at Freerepublic and Robert Spencer types I say....

 

how shall I put this so there is no misunderstanding.....?

 

 

 

DON'T BE ON MY SIDE!!!

 

He is right... I'm not a fan of Islam, however, I don't think that all people who follow the faith are all savages... Plus we have a thing called the 1st Amendment..

[Sanguine]

No one is suggesting that all muslims are savages, nor is that the issue. Neither is the First Amendment right to free speech, or a guarantee of freedom of religion. This issue is one of appropriateness and honoring the ~3000 killed and their families and friends. An issue that should be solved by the society rather than by the government.

 

BTW - this is an interesting addition to the discussion:

 

Church Near Ground Zero Asking For Attention

 

Updated: Friday, 06 Aug 2010, 11:52 AM EDT

Published : Friday, 06 Aug 2010, 10:32 AM EDT

 

MYFOXNY.COM - Reconstruction of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church near ground zero in Manhattan remains stalled nearly nine years after it was destroyed by the falling south towers. It was the only house of worship destroyed on 9/11/01.

 

The church's leader wants answers from the Port Authority of NY & NJ in light of the controversial plan to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site.

 

Good Day New York spoke with Father Mark Arey on Friday.

 

"We have worked with all the agencies. Gov. David Pataki assured us it will be rebuilt (at 130 Liberty Street.) We've hit a bureaucratic impasse with the Port Authority. We haven't heard from the PA in one year," said Fr. Arey.

 

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/good_day_ny/church-near-ground-zero-asking-for-attention-20100806

[Al_Simmons]

"The only difference with moderate Moslems is the length of their beards" - (paraphrased) the late Orianna Fallaci.

[Pepper]

"Chris Christie, acting like an adult in the mosque debate. Would that more politicians would follow his lead. " -- WVR

 

No, Christie is actively playing football himself with his own statement:

 

"I am not going to get into it, because I would be guilty of candidly what I think some Republicans are guilty of, and the president is now, the president is guilty of, of playing politics with this issue, and I simply am not going to do it.

 

If he weren't going to get into it he would have said "no comment". He broke his own rule.

 

Not that I have anything against Christie.

[Pepper]

(Since we already have a branch office on Pennsylvania Avenue, I think it's a great idea to go ahead and permit organizations dedicated to the destruction of the West to build massive recruitment centers anywhere in our great nation.)^sarcasm

[Argyle58]

No one is suggesting that all muslims are savages, nor is that the issue. Neither is the First Amendment right to free speech, or a guarantee of freedom of religion. This issue is one of appropriateness and honoring the ~3000 killed and their families and friends. An issue that should be solved by the society rather than by the government.

 

BTW - this is an interesting addition to the discussion:

 

Church Near Ground Zero Asking For Attention

 

Updated: Friday, 06 Aug 2010, 11:52 AM EDT

Published : Friday, 06 Aug 2010, 10:32 AM EDT

 

MYFOXNY.COM - Reconstruction of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church near ground zero in Manhattan remains stalled nearly nine years after it was destroyed by the falling south towers. It was the only house of worship destroyed on 9/11/01.

 

The church's leader wants answers from the Port Authority of NY & NJ in light of the controversial plan to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site.

 

Good Day New York spoke with Father Mark Arey on Friday.

 

"We have worked with all the agencies. Gov. David Pataki assured us it will be rebuilt (at 130 Liberty Street.) We've hit a bureaucratic impasse with the Port Authority. We haven't heard from the PA in one year," said Fr. Arey.

 

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/good_day_ny/church-near-ground-zero-asking-for-attention-20100806

 

After the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, Clinton's FEMA director refused to give federal aid to the two churches that were severly damaged in the attack; St. Joseph's Cathedral (Catholic) and First Church (Methodist). The grounds for refusal was that, according to FEMA, the churches weren't "necessary components of the community".

 

The pastor of First Church, Rev. Nick Harris, wrote a 4 page letter to the Daily Oklahoman on the subject that was published in papers worldwide. The Clinton Administration was embarrassed into doing the right thing, granting funds to repair St. Joseph's, and totally rebuild First Church.

 

Maybe someone at St. Nicholas' should take pen in hand.....

[righteousmomma]

No comment other than we live in a seriously surrealistic screwed up and screwed world as Western civilization spirals downward.

Here are some views collected from Newsbuster:

Olbermann Hints Moral Equivalence Between U.S. & Islamic Empire, Blocking Mosque May Be First Step to New Holocaust

By Brad Wilmouth | Tue, 08/17/2010 - 07:26

 

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann delivered a "Special Comment" in which he invoked Nazi Germany and suggested that blocking construction of a mosque near Ground Zero could be the first of a "thousand steps" toward another holocaust. He also suggested a moral equivalence between the Islamic Empire’s conquests and America’s expansion into the lands of Native Americans as he attempted to discredit former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s concerns about the choice of "Cordoba House" as the original name planned for the mosque as being intentionally symbolic of a Muslim victory at Ground Zero.

 

After starting his "Special Comment" by quoting Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous words about the Holocaust of World War II, he at first tried to make his rant sound more moderate and not really a comparison to the Holocaust: "I make no direct comparison between the attempts to suppress the building of a Muslim religious center in downtown Manhattan and the unimaginable nightmare of the Holocaust." He added: "Such a comparison is ludicrous – at least, it is now."

 

But the Countdown host was still alarmist enough to fear the mosque controversy could lead in that horrific direction: "Niemoller was not warning of the Holocaust. He was warning of the thousand steps before a holocaust became inevitable. If we are at merely the first of those steps again today, it is one step too close."

 

Norah: Mosque Opponents Acting Like 9-11 Terrorists

By Mark Finkelstein | Tue, 08/17/2010 - 07:23

 

Harry Reid may have deserted Pres. Obama over the Ground Zero mosque, but PBO can count on at least one stalwart defender: Norah O'Donnell.

 

On today's Morning Joe, the MSNBC "correspondent" today declared that the prez is deserving of praise for his position. Then, dancing a quantum leap further, O'Donnell accused mosque opponents of acting "like the people who attacked America and killed 3,000 people."

 

Ironically, just minutes earlier Mike Barnicle and Joe Scarborough were heaping scorn on Newt Gingrich for having said that the mosque has no more right to be built near Ground Zero than would a Nazi site near the Holocaust Museum or a Japanese one next to Pearl Harbor. The pair were horrified by Newt's analogy. But when Norah compared mosque opponents to the 9-11 murderers, Mike and Joe were peep-less.

 

N.Y. Times: Obama's Mosque Tolerance Upsets Those Who Want a 'White and Largely Christian' America

By Tim Graham | Mon, 08/16/2010 - 23:16

 

As President Obama struggled to step back from what the New York Times called a “strong defense” of the Ground Zero Mosque proposal, Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg felt the president’s pain in a Sunday "Political Memo" article, arguing that his shifting stands on the issue betray that this debate “is riskier for him than for his predecessors.” Stolberg wrote this is because his enemies want to live in a white, Christian-dominated country:

 

From the moment he took the oath of office, using his entire name, Barack Hussein Obama, as he swore to protect and defend the Constitution, Mr. Obama has personified the hopes of many Americans about tolerance and inclusion. He has devoted himself to reaching out to the Muslim world, vowing, as he did in Cairo last year, "a new beginning."

 

But his "new beginning" has aroused nervousness in some, especially those who disagree with his counterterrorism policies, or those more comfortable with a vision of America as a white and largely Christian nation, and not the pluralistic melting pot Mr. Obama represents.

 

ABC's Dan Harris, Who Slimed Tea Party, Now Tries to Discredit Mosque Opposition as Vile 'Islamophobia'

By Brent Baker | Mon, 08/16/2010 - 21:10

 

Dan Harris, who last year gave credence, by including their attacks in his stories, to those who wished to discredit the Tea Party as “actually largely orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests” and smeared participants as “driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President,” on Monday night read from the same playbook in maligning the motivations of those opposed to building a mosque near Ground Zero.

 

Harris began his World News story with “how this issue is creeping into campaigns all over the country” and “today conservatives were turning up the volume against the planned Muslim community center.” He soon arrived at:

 

Muslim activists say angry rhetoric is fueling a dangerous level of Islamophobia with protests over proposed mosques in places like Tennessee and Wisconsin, the bombing of a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida, in May, and a church in Gainesville, Florida, that's now planning to burn Korans on September 11th.

 

That led into a soundbite from Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, followed by a bite from Republican Congressman Peter King, a mosque opponent. Harris, however, then concluded with how more enlightened Republicans realize King's misdirection:

 

 

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/#ixzz0wrayEFy