Shut up! he explained

Stephen Walt, whose name is best known as half of the Walt-Mearshimer duo that has done so much to bring respectability to American anti-Semitism, has weighed in on the issue of the mosque near Ground Zero:

Apart from a brief post praising New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's forthright stance on the Muslim community center controversy, I haven't said much about this issue. I had naively assumed that Bloomberg's eloquent remarks defending the project -- and reaffirming the indispensable principle of religious freedom -- would pretty much end the controversy, but I underestimated willingness of various right-wing politicians to exploit our worst xenophobic instincts, and some key Democrats' congenital inability to fight for the principles in which they claim to believe. Silly me. 

This man is  the (are you ready?) Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International relations at Harvard University. Yet his argument can best be summarized as "'Shut up!' he explained." Mayor Bloomberg has spoken! How can you various right-wing politicians exploit our worst xenophobic instincts?

To be sure, there's a bit more to his blog than that. It's not really a mosque, he argues. It's not really at Ground Zero. Etc. But that "silly me" really says it all. It's a display of intellectual arrogance on a level with--well, with Mr. Bloomberg's. We command and you obey, over the hills and far away. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford