Should Republicans Surrender the War at Ground Zero?

By Andrew Thomas

Time Magazine's Mark Halperin has just released an article that literally begs the Republican Party not to take advantage of the politically suicidal remarks made by President Obama in support of the "Ground Zero" mega-mosque. Mr. Halperin's comments beg for a response. He writes:

Republicans have a strong chance to win the midterm elections without picking a fight over President Obama's measured words. And a national political fight conducted on the terms we have seen in the past few days will lead to a chain reaction at home and abroad that will have one winner - the very extreme and violent jihadists we all can claim as our true enemy.

In other words, don't take advantage of Obama's stupid gaffe as it will inflame tensions, divide the nation, and jihadists will be even madder at us than they are now.

The disingenuousness of this is galling. As the author pleads for Republicans not to divide the country for political gain, Democrats are actively inducing racial divisions and class warfare throughout the country to get themselves re-elected. The Iraq War itself became a political football in Democrat hands, exploited to grab political power at the risk of the lives of American troops in combat. "The ends justify the means", is an integral part of the Democrat leftist political playbook. Appealing to Republicans' civility to "do the right thing" as Mr. Halperin concludes in his piece, is blatant hypocrisy.

And the insinuation that preventing the building of the Ground Zero mosque is wrong because it will anger violent jihadists is ludicrous. I somehow get the feeling that Mr. Halperin was a very small, skinny kid, having at one time donated his daily lunch money to the local bully. In his mind, he did this so that the bully would not be upset with him. Unfortunately, the bully saw this as a sign of weakness, took his lunch money every day after that and beat him up anyway.

Democrats need to learn this lesson about radical Islam and other bullies: Appeasement begets extortion.

Republicans need to understand that the MSM is their sworn enemy and cannot be appeased by "civil" behavior. They need to learn to be as ruthless as Democrats on the political field of battle. As Mr. "Chicago Way" Obama said to his own party, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."

Andrew Thomas blogs at darkangelpolitics.com