Jonah Goldberg, whose columns are apparently published in grown-up newspapers for consumption by literate adults, uses today's to expand on a theme that he first toyed with at The Corner last week: Liberals are the real intolerant ones because they make up "Islamophobia" and accuse Real Americans of it.
Here's the lede:Ahh, the old "If you point out bigotry, you're the bigot!" excuse. Gosh, it's been a whole couple of hours since I've seen that one dragged out.
Here's a thought: The 70% of Americans who oppose what amounts to an Islamic Niketown two blocks from ground zero are the real victims of a climate of hate, and anti-Muslim backlash is mostly a myth.First: "an Islamic Niketown"? What ... what does that mean? Will there be shoes for sale? Are Americans objecting to the commercialization of the sacred ground near but not adjacent or particularly related to the former site of the World Trade Center, where a complex of commercial office building are currently being constructed? Couldn't Goldberg, who is Jewish and from New York, have come up with an analogy that actually helped explain to his readers what he is talking about?
The data backing up Goldberg's thesis? FBI hate crime statistics. That's it. There were only 481 hate crimes against Muslims in 2001, "the year a bunch of Muslim terrorists murdered 3,000 Americans in the name of Islam on Sept. 11," Jonah helpfully reminds us. ("Now, that was a hate crime," he adds, because he is a truly execrable columnist.)
If more than half of Americans want to deny American Muslims their constitutional rights, and somehow that isn't Islamophobia, then what is it, exactly? A misunderstanding of the Constitution? A hidden clause in the text in really, really tiny print? A mulligan? What?
I just don't get it. I really don't. I understand the human capacity for self-delusion and justification is nearly infinite, but really? Goldberg is this stupid?
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