Anti-Mosque 'Patriots' Undermine Petraeus

Fox News' Islamaphobia is going to backfire on US
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 22, 2010 10:09 AM CDT
Anti-Mosque 'Patriots' Undermine Petraeus
A July 4 file photo of Gen. David Petraeus.   (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, File)

The anti-mosque hysteria whipped up by the right—and especially by that "Islamaphobia command center" otherwise known as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp—is slimy, hypocritical politics at its worst, writes Frank Rich. In marshaling his evidence on that front, he points out a forgotten victim: Gen. David Petraeus. "How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?"

These anti-mosque hawks are among the Afghan war's last supporters, Rich writes in the New York Times. But their crusade (and it wouldn't exist had John McCain won) "is demolishing America’s already frail support for that war." Catch any of the general's many public statements last week? Probably not in all the mosque noise. "It’s poignant, really. Even as America’s most venerable soldier returned from the front to valiantly assume the role of Willy Loman, the product he was selling was being discredited and discontinued by his own self-proclaimed allies at home." (More Ground Zero mosque stories.)

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