"........"USA, USA, USA," one group began. "No clubhouse for terrorists," taunted one sign. "When did it become OK to be a bigot and a racist again?" shouted another. The police did their best to keep the two sides on opposite sides of the street..."
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It's true of course that the Cordoba controversy is good for extremists of all shapes and colors, but even if that result most probably wasn't intended by the sponsors of the project, then it is nonethless up to them to recognize this outcome and draw the necessary conclusions. The success or failure of any public relations project, and the Cordoba "Y" falls plainly in this category, is objectively measurable via public polling. Well, the polling is negative, in NY City, in NY State, and nationwide. Why persist then?
What amazes me is that anyone is amazed by the reaction. Imagine a group of German philanthropists ten years after World War 2 proposing to build a liberal cultural center 100 yards from the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Of course there would have been an outcry. And some of it would have been bigoted no doubt too. But at the core is the PR issue: if the aim was to demonstrate to the world that German culture went way beyond Nazism and thereby disassociate it from Nazism, then a cultural center right next to Auschwitz would have been precisely the wrong idea: because of the location, any and all culture performed there would have automatically been associated with Auschwitz. The same logic applies to the Cordoba House. Bigots are bigots, yes, but self-defeating PR is also just that.
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