TLF--Broadway Buffoon

To paraphrase the incomparable Mark Steyn, I think I can stand just about anything except Thomas L. Friedman channeling show tunes (and dropping a whole lot of names) to lend credence to the construction of the Ground Zero Mosque:

There are several reasons why I don’t object to a mosque being built near the World Trade Center site, but the key reason is my affection for Broadway show tunes.

Let me explain. A couple weeks ago, President Obama and his wife held “A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House,” a concert in the East Room by some of Broadway’s biggest names, singing some of Broadway’s most famous hits. Because my wife is on the board of the public TV station that organized the evening, WETA, I got to attend, but all I could think of was: I wish the whole country were here.

It wasn’t just the great performances of Audra McDonald, Nathan Lane, Idina Menzel, Elaine Stritch, Karen Olivo, Tonya Pinkins, Brian d’Arcy James, Marvin Hamlisch and Chad Kimball, or the spirited gyrations of the students from the Joy of Motion Dance Center and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts performing “You Can’t Stop the Beat” — it was the whole big, rich stew. African-American singers and Hispanic-American dancers belting out the words of Jewish and Irish immigrant composers, accompanied by white musicians whose great-great-grandparents came over on the Mayflower for all I know — all performing for America’s first black president whose middle name is Hussein.

The show was so full of life, no one could begrudge Elaine Stritch, 84, for getting a little carried away and saying to Mr. Obama, seated in the front row: “I’d love to get drunk with the president.”

Feeling the pulsating energy of this performance was such a vivid reminder of America’s most important competitive advantage: the sheer creative energy that comes when you mix all our diverse people and cultures together. We live in an age when the most valuable asset any economy can have is the ability to be creative — to spark and imagine new ideas, be they Broadway tunes, great books, iPads or new cancer drugs. And where does creativity come from? ...

Sorry to cut you short there, Tom, just when you're revving up to make your argument and all, but anyone with half a brain can see that one place creativity doesn't come from is the ideology which contends that "jihad is the way; sharia is the goal." From that ideology comes nada but the end of Western civilization, either via stealth jihad or through 9/11-style mayhem and destruction.

Or, to put it in Broadway show tunes terms, erecting a gibungous Islamic edifice on the site of a great jihadi triumph is no way to "solve a problem like sharia."

Update: TLF sings:

Give my regrets to Broadway,
Remember me to Imam Rauf.
Tell all the gang who balk at a GZM
It's time to knock it off.
Whisper about "divers'ty";
Throw in "religious freedom," too.
Give my regrets to old Broadway:
It won't be there when jihad's through.