The intolerance of Jonah Goldberg

The term “double-take” is so overused it’s become clichéd, but I did one that was so acrobatic my eyes actually somersaulted out of my sockets and ripped through the newspaper page. For a moment I wondered if my local paper had accidentally placed a radical Tea Bagger’s rant in the slot designated for Goldberg, but then I remembered that it’s precisely this sort of craziness Americans love - particularly the patriotic right-wingers of the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin/Rush Limbaugh/Mike Savage persuasion.

Here’s why Goldberg is a first-rate idiot. It doesn’t take but a five-second Google search to come up with a dozen or more anti-Muslim incidents since the “Ground Zero mosque” debate hit centre stage about 90 days ago. First and foremost, there is the case of the New York City taxi driver, Ahmed Sharif, who had his throat cut for admitting he was Muslim. But there are others.

In Fresno, California: two signs were left at the Madera Islamic Center reading “Wake Up America, the Enemy Is Here” and “No temple for the god of terrorism at Ground Zero”.

In Sacramento: a toy pig was left at the Council on American-Islamic Relations center that said “No mosque in NYC” and “MO HAM MED the pig.”

In Murfreesboro, Tennessee: authorities are investigating an arson fire that destroyed construction materials for a planned Islamic centre.

In Gainesville, Florida: an evangelical pastor continues to apply for permits that would allow him to commemorate 9-11 by hosting an “International Burn A Qur’an Day,” claiming that Islam’s holy book is full of lies, even though he admitted he’d never read its Satanic Verses.

In Astoria, New York: a drunken man stumbled into a mosque, screamed “Terrorists!” at the worshippers and proceeded to urinate on the prayer rugs.

Somehow none of these “isolated events,” according to Goldberg, are grounds for acknowledging a growing “anti-Muslim climate” in America. But are they really isolated events? Have they occurred out of the blue? Are they “remote”? How likely is it that people would put up a sign at an Islamic centre stating “No temple for the god of terrorism at Ground Zero” if it weren’t for the round-the-clock media coverage of the “Ground Zero mosque”; if it weren’t for the commentators accusing Muslim Americans of coming to this country in order to have “terror babies” who will grow up to destroy the Republic; if it weren’t for the pundits who continue to describe the Imam in charge of the proposed mosque as a “shady character” whose project is funded by “terror dollars”?

Goldberg, not surprisingly, fails to address any of this. The intellectual powerhouse would rather keep things simple, and simple, even if it is idiotically counterintuitive, means following the same mantra that GOP has followed since November 2, 2008: blame Obama.

Goldberg’s real point is that the only intolerance in America right now is the president’s. “When it comes to mainstream Americans, veterans, Obamacare opponents or (shudder) tea partiers, there’s no generalisation too broad or too insulting for the left,” he writes.

If he didn’t prove the nonexistence of the anti-Muslim climate in America by showing that Jews are discriminated more than Muslims, he definitely proved it by attacking “Obama and Co” for not “fretting” about the intolerance shown toward Tea Party Patriots and Obamacare opponents. Shallow GOP rhetoric has that power when it’s published by seemingly credible news agencies. And never mind that Tea Party Patriots and Obamacare opponents aren’t getting their throats cut for their beliefs. That’s apparently beside the point.

I wonder if Goldberg would deny the actual existence of an anti-Jewish climate in America if the tables were turned - if plans were announced to build a synagogue in New York City described daily by a prominent TV news networks as a “Terror Temple” planned as a training facility for radical Jews to destroy Christianity in the US; if “fair and balanced” news shows told the public that Jews were coming to America to breed “terror babies”; if Palin posted a Tweet “refudiating” the terrorist synagogue; if Glenn Beck hosted a rally aimed at “Restoring Honour” in America by making shrouded criticisms about the Jewish takeover of the government and said on his show that “the (Rabbi) behind the (Terror Temple) makes no bones about his goal to … bring (Halakhah law) to America”; if some radical neo-Nazi-in-training were to slit the throat of a Rabbi in a taxi cab so as to publicise the destruction of Christian hegemony in America.