Sarah Palin, who waded into a New York political fight by endorsing Ann Marie Buerkle in NY-25, is drifting into a decidedly higher-charged battle: The fray over a planned mosque near Ground Zero.
"Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing," she tweeted Sunday. (See the week's best one-liners.)
The building's planners, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, have said it's modeled on religious and community centers such as the YMCA, and that the 13-story, $100 million building would also include an arts center, gym and a swimming pool, as well as a mosque. It would be two blocks away from Ground Zero.
The project, which has become an increasingly partisan issue in New York, received a renewed burst of national attention when CBS and NBC rejected an ad from the National Republican Trust PAC that crosscut footage of the 9/11 attacks with the sounds of Muslim prayer.
"On Sept. 11, they declared war against us," a narrator says. "And to celebrate that murder of 3,000 Americans, they want to build a monstrous 13-story mosque at ground zero."
While a recent poll showed a majority of New Yorkers oppose the plan to build the mosque built near Ground Zero, an aide in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's City Hall hit back at Palin, first tweeting “@SarahPalinUSA mind your business." (The Arena: Is Sarah Palin anti-Muslim or anti-elite?)
The aide, policy hand Andrea Batista Schlesinger, followed that up with:
"@SarahPalinUSA whose hearts? Racist hearts?"
Schlesinger deleted both tweets shortly after posting them.
Reply With Quote