Newt's Park51 Stance Puts Him 'To The Right' Of Il Duce

Ben Smith's been digging into whether Newt Gingrich's call -- "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia" -- echoes a similar statement from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. His research has yielded some edifying results. The good news, for Gingrich, is that he wasn't, technically, remixing the words of one of the world's best-known fascists. Here's the bad news:

"Newt is more to the right of Mussolini on this," emailed Victoria de Graziathe, director of Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Europe, who wrote that Mussolini positioned himself as an Islamophile "to bug the British, also because he was an anti-Semite, also because he liked Nietzsche and Nietzsche was interested in the Koran."

There's much more, so go read the whole thing.

For my part, I've been deeply puzzled over the whole "no mosques at Ground Zero until there's a synagogue at Mecca" line, and not just because there's already a mosque in the neighborhood.

Aye, verily, all nations that aspire to be part of modern civilization should be welcoming of people of all religious faiths. But there's at least one nation that took those aspirations, put them on paper, and made it law: the United States. It makes zero sense for us to hold our principles hostage, demand that other nations that do not measure up to our standards hew to the ideals we whimsically abandon, and then pretend that that is some sort of bargain. That's the sort of thing that someone very daft or very disingenuous would say. But you have to be dafter or more disingenuous than Benito Mussolini, as it turns out!

RELATED:
Mussolini Update [Ben Smith/Politico]

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Comments

[JC Wilmore]

01:53 PM on 09/04/2010

Uh-oh, Newt Gingrich is at it again:

http://shockoe-lit-mess.blogspot.com/2010/09/newt-gingrich-its-too-soon-after-ixxi.html

[MollieinATL]

12:11 PM on 09/02/2010

More Newt! More Newt!

Palin and Beck are getting tiresome - their tr0lling minions, even more so.

But Newt is just funny - in a Jabba the Hut kind of way.

I will never be able to remove images from my mind from that Vanity Fair article about him having some manic epsiodes where his table-manners took leave of him. (Seafood...See? Food!) Or where a neighbor found him getting serviced inside his car by one of the neighborhood ladies from their East Cobb subdivision.

[Maney]

03:54 PM on 09/13/2010

Dear Millie:

You've just poked me in my mind's eye! - unfortunately it didn't blind me! ;=}

[Joshy X]

12:00 PM on 09/02/2010

Mussolini was considered to be one of Italy's most prominent Socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini, as Socialist, participated in a riot, led by Socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war" to capture the Libyan capital city of Tripoli, an action that earned him a five-month jail term.[19] After his release, he helped expel from the ranks of the Socialist party by two 'revisionists' who had supported the war, Ivanoe Bonomi, and Leonida Bissolati. As a result of this, he was rewarded the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! SOUNDS FAMILIAR EH DEMS? haha

Fascism is just another form of Socialism

[Maney]

04:05 PM on 09/13/2010

Fascism is just another form of fascism - also defined forcible suppression of opposition, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism. - sound familiar Repos?

[Rashaverak]

07:12 AM on 09/02/2010

I of Newt: Il Dunce.

[TheHedgeWitch]

08:33 PM on 09/01/2010

"It makes zero sense for us to hold our principles hostage, demand that other nations that do not measure up to our standards hew to the ideals we whimsically abandon, and then pretend that that is some sort of bargain".

It made sense to Newt and probably to the whole litany of conservative pundit pasha's who will grasp at the flimsiest straws to give credence to their flimsiest excuses for BIGOTRY and FEAR.

[baileywick]

08:16 PM on 09/01/2010

Repeat, Christians drove Native Americans from their homes and territories, attempted to exterminate them, and then put churches anywhere they wanted to. What does Newtie ever say about that?

[EastTraveler]

04:23 PM on 09/01/2010

Moderating my comments when I speak the absolute truth about Newt is disconcerning...

[toppermost]

01:58 PM on 09/01/2010

Newt really does live in an alternate reality. Where he is cool and relevant.

[den1953]

01:52 PM on 09/01/2010

I think Newt should be a Master of his own domain until 2012 then order some glasses and call it a day!

[Milrepa]

01:45 PM on 09/01/2010

I must have heard wrong. I thought I heard Newt say, "I don't notice any churches or synagogues in..." not, "There should be no...etc." Oh, details details.
But wait...doesn't this "Il Duce" name calling kind of chip away at the Dem argument that it is always the Conservatives who call people Nazi's? At any rate, it seems like it would be a compliment to Newt to say he's to the right of Il Duce, since the latter was an extremist Socialist.

[Heauxbeaux]

03:00 PM on 09/01/2010

Mussolini was one of the key figures in creating Fascism, not Socialism. They are polar opposites in meaning and intent. Oh details, details.
Whether there any any churches or synagogues in any other country is completely beside the point. The point is this is America, and one of its founding principles is freedom of religion.

[TheHedgeWitch]

08:22 PM on 09/01/2010

Who needs silly details, facts or the actual meaning to words? We are talking about GNewt.

[Rashaverak]

07:15 AM on 09/02/2010

Show me on the doll where Glenn Beck touched you....

[MollieinATL]

12:02 PM on 09/02/2010

LOL!!! Oh, that is wickedly funny! F&F!

[ignrnthllblly]

01:32 PM on 09/01/2010

Good. We needed a way of telling them apart. Newt's the one that feels compelled to marry his mistresses, right?

[Knowbetter]

01:32 PM on 09/01/2010

Hmm ... Newtie's a fascist, huh?

Color. Me. Shocked.

[osage]

12:34 PM on 09/01/2010

TODAY’S REPUBLICANISM.....IS THE VICTORY OF THE "ID" OVER THE "SUPER-EGO"

Today's Republicans don't believe that intelligence, logic, compassion, honesty or an acknowledgment of historical facts or legal precedents are relevant or worthy of consideration.

Driving jobs out of America and Americans out of their homes is "just business" to them; nothing "personal".

Corporations should be given the same first amendment free speech rights as individual citizens so they can "buy" political candidates and elections, despite the fact that works against the best interests of working class Americans and further diminishes their political relevance/influence.

Pollution, global warming and deforestation are all improvable "myths" of egg-head/tree-hugger scientists who are “socialist” enemies of “over-regulated” capitalism. The earth, which is no more than 6,000 years old, will miraculously heal itself! All we have to do is “pray”.

For today's mercenary self-focused soulless hybrid of dysfunctional near-sighted Republicans, it's not about right or wrong, good or bad, fair or unfair, rational or irrational.....it's about power and control, even if that means intellectual, moral, psychological and functional ignorance, delusion, denial and dishonesty. They want what they want for no other reason than they WANT it……regardless of the consequences to themselves and everyone else! Somehow, that makes "them" feel good about themselves….makes them feel “safe”.

[Milrepa]

02:04 PM on 09/01/2010

Since I know more Republicans than you do, both intimately and collectively, I can say with authority that I (and my compatriots) believe that logic, compassion, honesty and an acknowledgment of historical facts and legal precedents are relevant and worthy of consideration. If you truly respect historical fact, you will bravely focus on the fact that it was Bill Clinton who drove GATT and NAFTA, and the rest is history. Both parties are complicit. That corporations should be given the same first amendment free speech rights as individual citizens was a Supreme Court decision, not a Republican one, and deeply resented by every Republican I know.
Our own American Indians are aware of their 10,000 year old roots, and the only "myth" about "global warming denial" is the one perpetrated by a political/
media cabal seeking to galvanize the fraud of global tax theft (Cap and Trade) to benefit a few, and ameliorate NOTHING.
The nature of your other very personal allegations of "our" character are ubiquitious among Dems. I thought Salem was so yesterday.

[WeWantSocialismNow]

12:11 PM on 09/01/2010

You should be ashamed of yourself, thinking that you are a good liberal and Nancy Pelosi follower yet making comparisons of Gingrich to Mussolini. As Nancy Pelosi tearfully put it last year:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi teared up at a press conference on Thursday as she said that the tone of the national debate reminds her of the political violence of San Francisco in the 1970s. When asked if she thought the debate over the federal government could lead to violence, Pelosi said, “I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance. … I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw… I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco. This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it created a climate in which we, violence took place and… I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made.”

It is articles like this one Jason, that make poor Nancy cry. Sham on you! Go to the original video:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8603009

Watch it, realign yourself to your Pelosi/Liberal roots and write your apology to her and everyone here.

[toppermost]

02:01 PM on 09/01/2010

She is HISTORY professor. nice spin though.

[chipchuck]

11:35 AM on 09/01/2010

Newt follows the principals of American Exceptionalism. He can't let Mussolini be the paragon of fascism. He wasn't American! Way to go Newt, you proved just how radical you really are. As if the other stuff didn't like divorcing a cancer stricken wife, lying, cheating and stealing.