The GOP takes harsher stance towards Islam/Muslims

Haha hilarious, so now Dubya was a level-headed tolerant politician instead of the bigot anti-islamic nazi most liberals so vehemently claimed he was. I remember the Hitler comparisons and neo-nazi conspiracy theories that were circulated in abundance on this very board a few years ago.

So which is it now, Is Bush a bigot muslim hater or a man of religious tolerance?

You can't destroy the man's character for a decade and now pretend like it was nothing and just shrug it off.

I think neither Bush nor any current Republican is a bigot as the leftist media would have you believed. There are disagreements on the establishment of mosque near ground zero but race or religion plays a much smaller role in this than the pundits would have you believed. Look at it, Muslims were quietly praying in the very mosque for several months now without incident but the mainstream media draws focus on it for no good reason and all of a sudden people are upset over it when in fact few people even knew the mosque existed before it gained media popularity. I think media exposure did more harm to the mosque than the perceived good.

 

I never really thought that Bush was a bigot....issue was that he was dumb. He'd do dumb things and make dumb choices to make people think he had an agenda.

I think that Bush seriously believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The rest around him....not so much. They were more sinister in their reasoning. Be it oil, anti-Islam, defense contractors, etc. Bush, on the other hand, was just plain dumb enough to fall for it.

 

Falsely named?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Zero_Mosque

Less than two football fields. To me, that's close enough to be called ground zero. Hell, the building was close enough to be damaged in the attack. And there is going to be a Mosque built there, so I think the phrase is accurate.

 

Another person who has never been to lower manhattan and doesn't know jack about its geography lecturing us about it.

Ground zero = the lot on which the former WTC stood.

Not everything between Fulton and Bowling Green.

Not Battery Park City.

Not Moran's.

Not the World Financial Center.

Not the Century 21.

Not the New York Dolls.

Not the former Deutsche Bank building.

Not the Millenium Hilton downtown.

Not the Burlington Coat factory.

Not my old gf's place on Washington & Rector.

Not the Dowtown Athletic Club.

Understand?

 

I read an interesting article a few days ago talking about the cause of the rise of Islamaphobia over the last year. Basically the article's premise was that as long as Bush (a republican) was in office and put forth the image that this was not a war on Islam, the rank and file (closet racists) had to stay in check and toe the party line. But once Obama was elected there was nothing to keep the lid on. Restraint was no longer necessary. The tea party...er..crazies were free to make themselves known publically.

I think this willingness to play to the dark instincts of human nature will surely gain short term votes. But republicans are playing with dangerous fire by alienating Mexicans and Muslims or any non white person in America.

 

Maybe it's just a sign of how much worse the rest of Republicans are that by comparison Bush looks to be a level-headed tolerant politician.

 

the correct name is The Dome of the Landing Gear.

 

Or maybe it's because Bush is no longer the punching pinata liberals can smash to retrieve political sweets. His "dumbness" as someone put it earlier in this thread, is perhaps the reason he was such an easy target. Bush hardly ever defended any of the slander and lies perpetrated against him in the mainstream media. His "laissez faire" attitude on the tabloid/journalism media led to him to avoid more open discussion on several issues including the often portrayed idea that he was an anti-Islamic fear-monger when the facts and now historical analysis are proving otherwise.

I think the same is line of portrayal is occurring against the GOP today. Bush bashing no longer provides any political rewards so now the focus has shifted to other ranking members of the Republican party. Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to believe that race and religion are not in play here but the actual extent to which it plays a role has be grossly overstate by the left and its media outlet. Yes there are some non-tolerant Republicans out there just as there are "Robert Byrds" in the Democratic wing. However, to label either party as representing the views of a select few is grossly inaccurate and fraudulent.

 

why don't you just cut to the chase? It's the 911Mosque

right?

 

Muslims + 911 = hilarious

 

fixed.

 

It shores up their support with the fundamentalists AND the suburban wives.

It's a smart strategy, just like their anti-black strategy of the twentieth century.

 

fixed.

 

Interesting, except that it's primarily Bush supporters, aides, and moderates in the GOP that are making the claim that Bush was a voice of reason in their party. It's people like David Frum or Michael Gerson. It's not the same people that hated him.

Really? So you don't think the Republicans saying that Islam should not fall under freedom of religion, or who are fighting random mosques being built in Tennessee or California are bigots? You don't think comparing the mosque in NY to nazi-ism is bigtoed? What would you consider these things? Even Pat freaking Buchanan had to come out and denounce this nonsense, and he's a crazy himself.

 

He still started a war with a country because of their alleged ties to the terrorists that attacked us without understanding that because of religious differences between those groups, there never would have been any cooperation between them. That sounds pretty close to lumping all Muslims together.

Also, I like the bit about how he didn't care about how the media portrayed his administration, yet there have been reports that his people hand delivered their desired daily talking points to Fox News, the most watched news network in America.

 

CNN, NBC, and Fox all were contacted by the Bush administration in 2003 and were more or less told they had to downplay the Afghan war causalities so that when he declared war on Iraq later that week, there would be less opposition.

 

Different factors led to the war in Iraq. At times it was geopolitical issues, national security, middle east security and such but Bush never waged the war on religious grounds or base on some hatred for Muslims like he was portrayed in the mainstream media. In fact he was more "in bed" with Muslim sheiks especially the Saudis. So you can call it a number of things but the war was never about Islam or religion in general for that matter.

I agree with you that Bush grossly miscalculated the relationship between the Iraqis and organized terrorists but then again very few people fully understand the ethnic and religious history of the Middle East.

The part about Fox is pretty accurate and every president tries to manipulate the media and the flow of information especially during wars (lookup Wilson, FDR, Truman, Johnson etc...) However, my point was that in comparison to some other president including Obama, Bush was far less engaging of the media especially towards their hostility and often negative portrayal of his intelligence and character. He rarely came out and defended against some of the highly damaging stuff the media put out. He was openly called a number of things by a number of journalists yet he kept away and went on like it didn't bother him. I mean in comparison look at Kanye West Katrina comments, the shoe incident etc...No one in mainstream media defended him except for Fox. Now today you a get a few racists signs at some random tea party rally and all of sudden the entire leftist machine is up in arms defending Obama and condemning the entire movement. Where were these people when Bush was bashed at freaking telethon by Kanye?

 

Doesn't matter. Muslims are just going to keep reproducing, keep immigrating, and keep voting for the democrats.

It seems the best solution is to just drown the Muslim-haters out.