This evening on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while attacking the Park51 Islamic center, Dick Morris claimed that “these Sharia mosques... have become the command centers for terrorists”:
MORRIS: These Sharia mosques and that's the key word, Sharia, not mosque, have become the command centers for terrorism --
O'REILLY: You believe that this mosque, if it were built --
MORRIS: -- look at their role in 9/11 and Fort Hood.O'REILLY: -- would be used for nefarious purposes, that's the bottom line on Dick Morris, you believe that it would be --
MORRIS: Yes, it isn't just it would be a triumphant monument --
O'REILLY: It's speculation though, Dick. Right.
MORRIS: -- it would be a command - Well, the other ones are.
O'REILLY: Okay.
MORRIS: But the other mosques are.
O'REILLY: All right.
MORRIS: So this one would be too.O'REILLY: But this is America. You know you'd have the FBI all over that place.
Morris echoes these statements in his August 18 column:
The proposed mosque near to ground zero is not really a religious institution. It would be -- as many mosques throughout the nation are -- a terrorist recruitment, indoctrination and training center. It is not the worship of Islam that is the problem. It is the efforts to advance Sharia Law with its requirement of Jihad and violence that is the nub of the issue.
So there you have it. According to Dick Morris, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf - who has been widely described as a moderate, has repeatedly denounced terrorism, and worked with the Bush administration's FBI and State Department -- wants this Islamic center built so he can turn it into a terrorist factory.
But don't worry, opponents of Park51 aren't anti-Muslim!