Claudia Rosett, a writer with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the same neocon outfit that employs National Review's Andy McCarthy and Cliff May, has written a column arguing that Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan are "cashing in" on the controversy:
For Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, Ground Zero has become a bonanza. Since their plans hit the headlines this spring, they have achieved celebrity status on a scale that millions in advertising, or less abrasive "outreach" efforts, could not buy. Their names are all over the news. Their project has become a fixture on the summer talk shows. In the escalating furor, along with the criticisms , they have received de facto endorsements from such prominent folks as New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama (whose supportive remarks about their project, delivered at an Aug. 13 Iftar dinner at the White House, are now featured on U.S. embassy websites worldwide; but whose later waffling is not). Their real-estate partner, El-Gamal, has told the press, "This might become the most famous community center in the world." Whatever comes of this, Rauf, Khan and El-Gamal are likely to dine out on it--and well--for a long time.
The column comes laced with a bit of old-school-style resentment you generally see directed at wealthy black folks:
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, far from being shunned as Muslims, Rauf and Khan have enjoyed a boom business in "outreach." Their lifestyle includes at least two homes in the U.S. and one in Malaysia, fancy cars and pricey clothes. Last October, in an article headlined "High Five With Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf," Forbes chronicled the imam's pleasure in driving a Lexus GS400. Rauf also detailed how he enjoys Armani and Brioni suits, his wife likes her cashmere scarves, and he mentioned his fondness for handcrafted Persian rugs, especially those woven of silk. He added that he owns about 15 carpets dispersed between his homes in New Jersey and New York, and another 15 carpets "at my home in Malaysia."
Silly Muslims! The fruits of American capitalism, like constitutional rights, are for people conservatives approve of. Which is it though, guys; is Rauf a high-rolling big-spending elitist or a secret radical who subscribes to an ascetic form of Islamic extremism? If the conservative obsession with Jeremiah Wright and Obama secretly being a Muslim has taught us anything, it's never underestimate the conservative mind when it comes to holding two contradictory ideas when those thoughts involve some kind of cultural resentment.
Back to Rossett's original point: conservatives spent months turning a local land-use issue into a national controversy by falsely painting Rauf as a radical and terrorist sympathizer, and now they're complaining about all the "free publicity" he's gotten as a result of their smear campaign. The only thing missing from Rossett's argument is the actual "cash" involved in "cashing in." Rossett doesn't offer single a shred of actual evidence that the Cordoba Initiative has benefited financially from the controversy her colleagues helped create, in part for the purpose of frightening away any potential donors to the project.
If conservatives are angry about the "free publicity" their smear campaign has gotten Rauf, they should refrain from smearing their next target until they find out whether or not that person would like to be the subject of a national campaign of deliberate misinformation. See how many people are willing to pay for that kind of attention.
