Grover Norquist: Ground Zero Mosque The 'Monica Lewinsky Ploy' For GOP

[RamboLiberal]

Conservative voice Grover Norquist says that heated debate pervading the country over plans to build a mosque and Islamic community center a few blocks away from "Ground Zero" in New York City may inadvertently backfire on Republicans.

Norquist, whose wife is Muslim, weighed in on the matter in an interview with Michael Scherer at Time magazine earlier this week.

"It's the Monica Lewinsky ploy," explained Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "The Republican Party is on track to win a major victory in November based on the issue that Democrats are spending the country blind... There isn't a single voter in the country that was planning on voting for the Ds, who says, 'Oh, mosque issue, now I will vote for the Rs.'"

The take from the conservative, who has worked closely in the past with the likes of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former President George W. Bush, comes on the heels of him taking a swipe at Republicans for politicizing the religious matter to the Los Angels Times.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/19/grover-norquist-calls-gro_n_687534.html

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. what happens if

they find out 9/11 wasn't carried out by Muslims when in fact it was carried out by someone else, for example, the Russians?

[dkf]

3. Maybe we will find out it never happened at all. We were just dreaming it.

[jdlh8894]

4. Damn! And I thought I just woke up.

Rip van Winkle!

[Winterblues]

7. How did religion get in the mix anyway?

It seems 9-11 was a political statement to me, otherwise they would have bombed a church. Just because someone belongs to a religion, which applies to a great majority of people in the world, does not mean their criminal actions are religious in nature.

[damntexdem]

5. It doesn't matter unless it happens by November.

And in any case, 9/11 was NOT perpetrated by Sufis.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. I wished they would find out the true perpetrators

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. Mosques suck?

I don't see the Monica connection.

:wtf:

[NewJeffCT]

6. The Monica incident & the subsequent impeachment

made Clinton more popular.

However, I'm not sure how that applies to this situation. Even if the GOP keeps hammering on the Islamic Center issue, I don't think it will make Obama more popular.

Now, when Darrell Issa starts impeachment hearings over some trivial incident, then we'll see Obama's popularity improve.

[Qutzupalotl]

11. I think Obama could turn the tables on the GOP, IF he frames it as

"Why do Republicans hate the Constitution?"

He's got to stay firmly on the side of defending the Constitution, whether the 14th or 1st Amendments. Then he'll be fine.

[karynnj]

16. I see his argument as more subtle than that

He is a true believer in small government. I think his point was that in 1994 the Republicans had huge gains running on the need for small government (Contract for America). Then in 1997 and 1998, the issue became Monica. Not a good issue for the Democrats, but he seems to think that it actually helped because it distracted the country from the sharp small government/large government argument that he thought was working for the republicans.

Now, he wants the election focused on that same small government/large government difference, which he says is what the Republicans win on. (In fact, the 1994 win was more complicated and there are any number of races won by wedge issues or echo chamber smears - which this one is.)

[Winterblues]

8. Lol

:rofl:

[xxqqqzme]

9. Seems grover doesn't know

people are aware it was the Rs who put us in this mud hole.

[kestrel91316]

10. Uh oh. This isn't going to end well for Grover, now that the cat is out of the bag

about his wife being AN EEEEEVIL MOOSLIM!!!!!! The teabagger base ain't gonna like THAT one bit.

[Festivito]

12. (...Darn, we're losing the debate...) Hey! Look! It's the CLENUS! /nt

[KharmaTrain]

13. It's All About Turning Out A Minoirty...

The more these shitstains alienate voting groups the more likely the GOOP will not be able to win national elections on their "positions"...but on the local level it's another story. They are targeting 40 races in red and purple areas in hopes that the fear, racism and hatre will energize their voters so they show up. Meanwhile this administration and agent provacateurs from Faux Noise on one side to critics on the left are doing a fine job demoralizing the Democratic base.

This "mosque" Fauxrage© is a deliberate and coordinate attempt to create "controversies" that play right into the hatred of the great unhinged. Will the American electorate read through this? I'm so so sure...

[tanyev]

14. So Grover's admitting that the Lewinsky brouhaha was a calculated political ploy.

Interesting.