If you buy into the left punditocracy’s framing of the Ground Zero issue, there are a ton of Islamophobes in New York:
Seven in ten New Yorkers say the proposed mosque/Islamic community center near Ground Zero should be relocated because of opposition from 9/11 families — and an equal number want state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to probe the group’s finances, a new statewide poll released today found.
“Overwhelmingly — across party and regional lines — New Yorkers say the sponsors ought to voluntarily move the proposed mosque to another location,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
And women are the worst “bigots”: “By a 56-34 margin, women said the mosque should not be allowed to build near Ground Zero despite the legal right to do so. Among the men, there was a narrower 50-45 split.”
Moreover, the mosque builders appear to be the sorts of villains the left usually excoriates. The New York Post op-ed page explains that the builders are tax dodgers with a rap sheet:
Indeed, Sharif El-Gamal, who owns the site — as The Post’s Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein reported Sunday — owes nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the city in back payments. His firm, 45 Park Place Partners, simply skipped its property-tax bills in January and July, according to the Finance Department. Gamal’s folks say he delayed payments while seeking a lower tax rate, The New York Times reported.
Gamal, 37, also reportedly pleaded guilty to at least six misdemeanors while in his teens and 20s. Charges included disorderly conduct, drunk driving and attempted shoplifting.
And he was arrested once for punching a man who owed his brother money and another time for soliciting a prostitute.
And what’s more, “tenants in New Jersey buildings owned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who’s leading the mosque project, describe him as a veritable slumlord.” This is the “moderate” imam and role model who’s been sent overseas at taxpayers’ expense:
“All he likes is money,” one tenant, Vilma Then, says. “Nothing [in her building] ever gets fixed.”
Jamie Barillas, another tenant, agrees, adding that tenants are forced to call their city officials to seek action. Barillas complains, for example, that bedbugs plague her building and that managers claim they don’t have money for an exterminator.
Not only has the left punditocracy managed to get on the opposite side of 70 percent of one of the Bluest States in the country, but it has also championed a tax cheat and exploiter of “the little guy.” I’d be hard pressed to find a better example of the rotten judgment and political extremism of what passes for the liberal intelligentsia.