My Heroes

I was just about to put up a post about the Muslim Center and some recent thoughts when Peter King, Jerold Nadler, and Ali Mohammed (a street vendor) beat me to it. I will let their words express what I was thinking and feeling.

"Newt Gingrich is talking about Nazis and whatever, I mean, that means nothing," said Rep. Peter King, a Republican who has led the local opposition to Park51, a 13-story Islamic center that would include a prayer space with an imam, a 500-seat auditorium, a pool, senior center and meeting rooms. King, a plainspoken Long Islander, argues that the center would be insensitive to the families of Sept. 11 survivors, but noted that some of the most prominent national opponents to the project had taken their rhetoric too far, and until very recently, didn't seem interested in New York at all.

"First of all, this is real America," said King, sarcastically using Palin's phrase for the homeland. "The people who detached themselves from New York are all of a sudden embracing New York."

No shit. Well said, dude. And I don't even support your view on the center but boy oh boy did you perfectly convey their hypocritical bullshit.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the city's most outspoken supporter of the Muslim congregation's right to build the center, couldn't agree more. "It's disgusting," he said of the remarks by Gingrich and other Republicans who rarely expressed support for the city. "It is an attempt to exploit for purely political motives a sensitive issue. And to exploit people they obviously don't really care about."

Sometimes there is bipartisanship...cool!

Mohammed, like many other New Yorkers, has reached his saturation point. "They got nothing to do with New York and they don't care about New York," said the 56-year-old from Brooklyn, igniting a Marlboro Light. "They are trying to create propaganda."

Yes, they are. Perhaps it's possible...just possible...that New Yorkers, in their disagreement over whether or not this should be built, may have found some common ground. I applaud it!