Muslims in the US are mostly brown people. I think that might have something to do with the difference.

Timothy McVeigh had two voluntary associations in his life: the Republican Party and the NRA. Is it too soon to ask whether we can trust either organization in or near a federal building?

Timothy McVeigh had two voluntary associations in his life: the Republican Party and the NRA. Is it too soon to ask whether we can trust either organization in or near a federal building?

Not too soon. Clearly we can't trust either organization in or near a Federal building. Or pretty much any other building.

Well, that's not going to go over well at the Catholic League.

Speaking as a Catholic, the Catholic League can go f**k themselves. With a rusty chainsaw.

Sir, I resent the association.

by no reasonable standard should Roman Catholic Churches be assumed to be dangerous to children, just because of a systemic scandal involving sexual abuse.

The systemic scandal involving sexual abuse -- as you put it, Steve, "the horrific scandal that has plagued the Roman Catholic Church, in which priests sexually abused countless children -- across the United States, and around the world -- and church officials neglected to act, often engaging in an international cover-up," occured in part because people didn't presume Roman Catholic Churches could be dangerous to children, and they were wrong.

Right now, it looks like the church leadership is more interested in protecting themselves and the hierarchy than children. Isn't that -- and the fact that, as you point out, Steve, the abuse scandal was systemic -- a reasonable standard for at least wondering if Roman Catholic Churches might be dangerous to children?

It's a provocative comparison. (It's also funny.) But it's not a politically persuasive one -- in fact, one reason it's funny is because it is so over-the-top politically insensitive.

Political sensitivity is something progressives really need to work on.

I keep suggesting the value of pivoting from OF COURSE the First Amendment protects putting a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, to criticizing the Cordoba folks for various clueless and atrocious things they've done and said.

And you guys keep insisting that offending people is somehow smart, so you not only refuse to see the Cordoba folks for what they are, you attack folks who DO.

It's impressively inconsistent, yanno.

Steve B: you've posted many times criticizing the Catholic church for stuff like disciplining nuns for violating doctrine. How do you square that with not once mentioning that Cordoba organizer Rauf wants Sharia judges to have a special role within the US judiciary?

Seems kinda hard to argue that it's okay for a non-Catholic to criticize the Vatican for, um, being Catholic, but it's not okay for a non-Muslim to criticize Muslims for promoting Islamic practices.

And it seems particularly problematic to keep insisting that the ONLY reason for criticizing the Ground Zero mosque must be anti-religious bigotry: how does that square with the Arya Nomani, the American Muslim who has also expressed discomfort with the location?

There IS an effort to reform Islam from within -- and you guys are on the wrong side.

Like I said: the smart thing to do is to insist that the First Amendment protects their right to build it there, done deal -- and then to pivot to criticize the Cordoba people for claiming that 9/11 was America's fault, that Sharia should have a place in American jurisprudence, etc.

Why do you resist common sense?

Like I said: the smart thing to do is to insist that the First Amendment protects their right to build it there, done deal -- and then to pivot to criticize the Cordoba people for claiming that 9/11 was America's fault, that Sharia should have a place in American jurisprudence, etc.

So when Pat Robertson and Glenn Beck say that 9/11 was our own fault, that's perfectly okay, but if an American Muslim says the same thing, it's the WORST THING EVAH?!?

We've been screwing around in the Middle East since at least the overthrow of Mossadegh. Al-Qaeda wouldn't exist if we hadn't decided to fight a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and arm the mujaheddin. Tell me again how it totally wasn't our fault that a group that the US created and supported turned on us and attacked us.

That's actually a brilliant comparison. As such, it will go over most people's heads.

Faulty analogy.
If Al-Qaeda's offensive against America was as massive and widespread as the sex abuse scandal, this country would look like London during the Blitz.

I'm pretty sure Stewart's audience (many of them here) got Oliver's point. No need for the deconstruction, Mr. Benen.

A better analogy would be opposing a Mormon church next to a playground because of the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal.

Islam has numerous "denominations" (although not quite as formalized as Christian sects) and the 9-11 hijackers observed a very different version of Islam than those proposing to build the Park51 project.

So, why do the opponents of Park51 seem to have been huge fans of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act when it was passed a decade ago? Did they have no idea what their bill meant?

The Daily Show also shines a light on the "can vs. should" fallacy of relevance.

Everyone has a say in whether entity A "can" legally do action X.

But debating whether entity A "should" or should not do action X is completely irrelevant.

Timothy McVeigh also was Catholic. He was raised so; he asked to see a Catholic priest before his execution.

Some people are just thinking ahead.

If you're not hankering to kick Iran's ass, you may not understand the need to prepare the battlefield here at home. Bolton says we and/or Israel only have a few days left to enjoy the luxury of clean, radiation-free bombing of Iran.

If we bomb Iran, we may make a lot of Muslims angry. They may conclude that our penchant for bombing folks on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Iran (have I left anyone out?) looks a lot like war on Islam.

That's what this about. Now that the Republicans are "out of power", they're taking on a whole religion in our name. And the Democrats are letting them get away with it. Maybe it's the price we pay for years of undereducating and overentertaining the population. Now we can't win an argument with idiots who have money and TV networks.

"Unlike religion, freedom of speech is completely protected..."LOL

Loud and clear...republicans are destroying our nation...every aspect of it. We must get rid of them before it's too late. Don't let them demonize the word "Socialism", because only Democratic Socialism will both ensure our freedom AND our survival from the 1% who are selling out America for profit.

Gingrich deals in Hypocrisy only. Why is he still given a national platform...oh, it's FAUX, the station of eunichs .

There are millions of Catholic children unaffected by this behavior. It's systemic only because it happened in many different places, a scandal because it wasn't addressed properly by the Church leadership but certainly only involved a very small number of children as compared to the number of children untouched and a part of Catholicism... say a million to one. And no, I'm not a Catholic.

Hell, we had a presidential debate in a Christian mega-church refereed by a minister. Politicians are constantly slammed if not Christian enough. Christians are constantly trying to insert the ten commandments and the bible into our legislative processes as they believe their God is the only way so why be shocked if other religions try to do the same.

We are also guaranteed freedom "from" religion though few politicians could get elected if they claimed it.

It's the Christian version of Sharia law that we should all fear as much as the Christian Taliban espoused by a few republicans in congress.

I was pleased to see this on the Daily Show, since we had this discussion earlier this week:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_08/025213.php#1813093

I'd also like to remind everybody of Ted Bundy's political work with the Republicans (since we are doing the guilt-by association):
http://www.crimemagazine.com/ted-bundy-poster-boy-serial-killers

Finally, if you don't want to criticize Christian religions for their support of domestic terrorism (abortion clinics), perhaps reminding the nutbags that oppose the Islamic center that either the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, or we can take their guns away.

Right?