The Quran Burner and a Presidential Phone Call

The White House is considering calling Terry Jones, the Florida preacher who is set to burn a stack of holy Qurans on Saturday. Jones said today he might reconsider if the White House called him. They areconsidering making the call. My gut instinct is they should not. The White House should never negotiate with terrorists and fanatics.

I recognize there is more at stake here than making some sort of testosterone laden statement about not being pushed into a corner by bullies. This is precisely why President Obama is better suited for the job than I am. If somebody can stop this unproductive and destructive event from occurring with a single a phone call, it probably should be made. However, Terry Jones and those who back him are no better than any other fanatical group that spews hate and tries to force the U.S. into a corner.

Terry Jones has a right to free speech, but he needs to be held accountable for what he says and does. A man of faith should know better. The fact he doesn’t makes him no better than the extremists he supposedly is out to stop. If you call, Mr. President, make sure you don’t negotiate. That would set a bad precedent.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Drive Time Extremist Talk Radio is Dangerous

It is with a certain amount of trepidation that I mention WHO Radio personality Steve Deace in this space. Mr. Deace’s views are rarely worthy of much discussion and I fear little positive comes from providing another forum to further air his brand of extremism. However, Mr. Deace has stepped over a line and I cannot sit quietly and let him go unchallenged this time.

Mr. Deace finds Nidal Hasan’s shouts of “Allah is great” during the rampage at Ft. Hood irrefutable evidence that an entire religion is not peaceful. On his daily blog, Mr. Deace expanded on what he said during his Monday broadcast by writing, “Contrary to conventional wisdom, Hasan may have done America a favor if we heed the warnings after the fact that we ignored beforehand, which sadly cost 13 brave and loyal Americans at Ft. Hood their lives. If we stop lying to ourselves and accept the grave determination of the religious ideology that allegedly drove Hasan, then those 13 Americans didn’t perish in vain.”

Hasan is twisted and deeply troubled. The mental demons that haunt Hasan convinced him that his religious beliefs gave him authority to carry out the brutal and vicious attack. The nutbags who committed the atrocities of 9/11 felt the same way. However, Islam is not the only religion with followers who use its teachings to create fanaticism.

It was not too long ago that White men with sheets over their heads committed crimes against minorities, Catholics and others in our country. The Ku Klux Klan and related entities often used religious vehemence to recruit the weak minded and incite violence. The acts of these criminals can no more be used to condemn Christianity than the acts of the dangerous sociopaths who do so in the name of Islam.

Mr. Deace suggests the fight our nation faces is one centered on religion, not one based on protecting liberty and freedom. Conveniently for Mr. Deace, he has come to the conclusion that his religion is the one the U.S. should protect first. He goes on to state that Muslims cannot be loyal to country and should be barred from serving it. “Islam is an ideology opposed to the American ideal every bit as much as communism or Nazism were,” he wrote.

Mr. Deace says his religion “doesn’t provide too many roadblocks” to prevent him from following the U.S. Constitution. While it would be bitterly ironic, I hope for Mr. Deace’s sake the day doesn’t come when some fool with a radio show suggests Mr. Deace’s religious roadblocks make him an enemy of the state. Our Constitutional freedom springs from mutual respect and a system of law that grants rights to every American based on our being human, not our religious affiliation.

I am anything but a religious expert, but I do know that nearly 25% of the world population identify themselves as Muslim and I have come to know many peaceful and patriotic Americans of this faith. Peace will not be found on the road outlined by Mr. Deace. If we identify an entire religion as the enemy, we close ourselves off to the world by becoming like the zealots we despise. We must root out evil and kill it, but we must not condemn the many because a few madmen hide behind their religious doctrine.

When asked to speculate on the lives lost in the ghastly 9/11 terrorist attacks, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded, “the number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately.” We could not know then how painfully accurate that statement was. This Veterans Day finds Americans still grappling with the price we pay for our commitment to preserve freedom.

Since New Year’s, 141 American servicemen have been lost in Iraq, 288 have been killed in Afghanistan and, last week, 13 Americans died in the Ft. Hood shootings. As we pause to remember veterans lost and to thank their fellow patriots who have sacrificed mightily in service and returned home, we also pray for those who defend us today in every corner of the world.

Religious teaching and Faith drive many Americans to commit themselves to protecting and defending liberty, freedom and human rights throughout the world. However, it is not our similar religious beliefs that bind us together as a nation, but our oath to protect and defend each other even when those beliefs are divergent.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

The photo above is of a 1926 edition of The Good Citizen which was published from 1913 until 1933 by the Pillar of Fire Church at their communal headquarters in Zarephath, NJ.

If Bush had done that…

Some supporters of former President George W. Bush, conservatives and others like to ask rhetorical questions that begin with the phrase, “Can you imagine the outcry if Bush would have…,” or something similar in an attempt to show President Barack Obama is getting an easier ride with the media. These anguished cries remind me of those made by a comic strip teenager who thinks his younger brother gets softer treatment than he did.

Before you fire off that angry email to me, let me explain.

President Bush did get a lot of criticism – some of it he earned, some of it he did not. It is now President Obama’s turn to travel down this presidential road of unequal criticism. However, the circumstances surrounding these two presidents are different, making the “what if” comparison difficult, if not impossible to apply with any accuracy.

Nine months into his presidency, President Bush was leading a nation that had suffered gruesome terrorist attacks. Eight years and three weeks ago today, American men and women were sent to war in Afghanistan. We were rallying and a patriotic fever spread across the nation. President Bush was boldly leading and Americans stood firmly behind him. There was no time for partisanship. We had to stand together and face this unknown and evil threat. Bush’s popularity surged.

President Bush faced obstacles his predecessors could have never imagined. It would have been foolhardy to try to equate his first nine months in office to those of President Bill Clinton. Our country had never been through anything like this before. Clearly, the same can be said for President Obama. He took office during an economic crisis unlike any our country had seen and we are waging a war on two fronts. It is not feasible to develop a scorecard that could determine which president faced the more daunting tasks. More important, there is no point in trying to do so.

As President Bush’s first term continued, he made decisions that some would laud and others would decry. His political opponents tried to vilify and belittle him. He won reelection and he made some mistakes. His detractors became louder as his once skyrocketing poll numbers became a distant memory. Americans appraised President Bush for how he led and few were those who tried to compare Presidents Bush and Clinton. They are their own men and they were different leaders in dissimilar times.

Those in the media have a job to do and most of them are committed to trying to seek the truth and report it. As the circumstances, personalities and world events faced by Presidents Bush and Obama are disparate, so too are today’s media and that of the Bush era. As the news industry enters a new age, news rooms that were once crowded seem empty. Many newspapers have disappeared as consumers adapt to a still evolving array of electronic mediums. Perhaps, President Obama has been received by some reporters better than was President Bush. I do not know, nor do I care. For I, like most Americans, see it as my duty to seek out the truth and wade through the ever present biases on my own.

President Obama has an agenda and a leadership style that is starkly different from President Bush. Only time will tell what Mr. Obama is able to accomplish with his presidential opportunity. The American people will likely shake off the cries of “what if” and appraise Mr. Obama on how he does the job. Just like the comic strip teenager, the sooner we focus on what is the best way forward and cease worrying about who “momma likes best,” the sooner we can begin to make headway as a country.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.