Hentoff explains why he sided against the constitution (yet again)

[Blue_Tires]

Why I Oppose the Downtown Mosque

My old friend, colleague, and former shop steward, Tom Robbins—in an August 30 blog item, "Nat Hentoff's Best and Worst, All in One Month"—charged me with having become the Benedict Arnold of the First Amendment, having betrayed my previous "unrelenting defense of tolerance and freedom of speech."

His traumatic discovery of my disgrace, he sighed, "kind of breaks your heart, or, as Abbey Lincoln once said, 'I'll Drown in My Own Tears.' " I was at my best on that fateful month, Tom said in his threnody, because when I ran Candid Records, I recorded Abbey in Max Roach's "Freedom Now Suite."

If you have ever heard and seen Abbey, how could I have not recorded her? Abbey recently left us, but her penetrating integrity remains—not only on her many recordings but also in the jazz musicians she impelled to keep discovering more of their true voices, as she continually did.

But how did I break Tom's heart? He cited one of my syndicated United Media columns that also appeared in the Jewish World Review, Cato Institute, Realpolitics, and a range of daily newspapers. According to tearful Tom, "Here's Hentoff, who has now found a little corner of the world where his prized Bill of Rights does not apply, a No-Muslim Zone in Lower Manhattan. He fails to tell us how many blocks it should extend."

Though not in tears, I feel sorry for Tom. As often happens, passionate indignation leads to blinding distortion of what actually triggered the shock. In the column he cited—the first of several I've written on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf—dig, word for word, what I wrote in the very second paragraph: ". . . Of course, all American Muslims have their First Amendment right to exercise their freedom of religion in their place of worship. There have been other mosques in New York City without opposition. That freedom is not at stake here" (emphasis added).

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-09-29/columns/why-i-oppose-the-downtown-mosque/
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Funny how this self-styled, absolutist freedom-loving defender of civil liberties frequently seems to be on the wrong side of (or have selective memories about) the Bill of Rights...

And true to GOP procedure, he cites his "We're not against the mosque, we're against it being built THERE" excuse...How this jerkoff ever had any credibility I will never know...

[vi5]

1. So depressing...

Hentoff was a hero of mine for his undying commitment to the first amendment. To see him fall like this is truly proof that we are through the looking glass in this country.