NRO has tried hard to connect Imam Faisal Rauf, the man behind the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero, to terrorism, but this statement in their editorial today is correction-worthy:
Nor is Rauf exactly full-throated in his rejection of terrorism, offering only this: “The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.” While he cannot quite bring himself to blame the terrorists for being terrorists, he finds it easy to blame the United States for being a victim of terrorism: “I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.”
Yeah, the interview in which Rauf says, “I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened,” is the same one in which he offers a "full-throated rejection of terrorism," saying, "Fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam. ... There are always people who will do peculiar things, and think that they are doing things in the name of their religion. But the Koran is ... God says in the Koran that they think that they are doing right, but they are doing wrong."
NRO just pretended that part wasn't in there.
