Calling PolitiFact! David Gregory Fails To Challenge Rick Lazio’s NYC Mosque Statements

Here, in a snapshot, is why Meet the Press is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Needless to say the main topic of conversation (notwithstanding Blago’s swing through Fox News Sunday) on the Sunday shows yesterday was the furor over the Lower Manhattan mosque. On ABC’s This Week Christiane Amanpour spoke with Park51’s Daisy Khan (wife of Iman Rauf) and Joy Levitt, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan who consulted with Khan when she initially decided to open the center. You can watch the clip below: It’s both an intelligent conversation and revealing in so far as how focused on practical details the thinking behind the community center was, including space for strollers and shoes.

Meanwhile, as their local representative Meet the Press opted to feature embattled New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio. This is the same Lazio who in a last ditch effort to gain some media attention latched on to the Lower Manhattan mosque issue last week and released a campaign ad featuring images from 9/11 (much to the dismay of NYC firemen and policemen). Apparently that last ditch effort worked!

Which in and of itself would be one thing. Sunday mornings are a tough game and you have to find some way to grab some post-headlines (especially when you’re up against Blago), but it’s altogether something else for the top-rated Sunday show to not challenge Lazio on some of his more baseless assertions, which are clearly a political play to smear Andrew Cuomo. Lazio’s opening remarks below:

MR. GREGORY: You’ve been criticized by the firefighting union, police union, for using those images of 9/11. Why have you felt strongly enough to make this a part of the campaign? Why is it that the mosque does not belong where they say it should go?

REP. LAZIO: Well, first of all I would say, David, there are millions of peace-loving, good Muslims in America. This Imam Rauf is not one of them. He’s not a bridge builder. This is a man, the very same month that people were burying their loved ones that were lost in 9/11, he said that America was an accessory to the crime of 9/11. He said that Osama bin Laden was created in the USA. He refuses, only months ago, to, to distance himself from Hamas, in fact, protecting him — protecting them, and only recently one of the developers said that they would consider taking money from Iran. Now, I don’t know exactly what we think we’re talking about, but 70 percent of the New York– people in New York believe that we are, we are not supportive of having this mosque, this Imam in this location. Let’s be very precise about this. We’re not talking about a whole religion, we’re not talking about prayer. There are over 100 mosques in New York City, there are a couple of thousand in America. Nobody’s arguing for a cap on mosques. Nobody’s saying that people shouldn’t have a place to pray. What we are saying is that this person, this imam, we want to open up the books, show some transparency, where is this money coming from? And that’s what we’ve been calling on Andrew Cuomo– as the attorney general…

Emphasis mine. Granted this is far from the craziest thing that has ever been said on MTP (Dick Armey is basically a regular these days), but what is both utterly crazy and irresponsible is that David Gregory did not immediately follow these remarks up by asking Lazio what proof he has that Rauf is not a peace-loving Muslim (or “terrorist sympathizing Imam” as he states in his recent ad). Or why, in Lazio’s eyes, Rauf is suddenly not a bridge builder when in fact that’s exactly the role the GOP has asked him to play since 2001. Or where exactly this supposed Iran money is coming from since that story appears to be merely rooted a “no comment” from a Park51 spokesperson. But no, here’s how Gregory followed up.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

REP. LAZIO: …he’s got the jurisdiction over registered charities, which is what the Cordoba Initiative is, to impose some transparency here.

MR. GREGORY: OK. Jeffrey Goldberg, you’ve reported on this extensively, you know the imam. You have a different view.

I waited through the segment to see if Gregory would circle back and address the factual discrepancies, or at least ask Lazio for an explanation, but he did nothing other than allow Goldberg to say “I know him [Rauf] from different, different venues, different dialogue groups. The man, in, in my personal experience, is, in fact, a bridge builder.” And then later asks Lazio “whether we are living our values in this debate.” Great. How about, is anyone living in the facts?

This is a story that, since it was latched onto by some conservative pundits, has been rife with overblown and often offensive innuendo. It is exactly the sort of story which desperately needs a good airing of the facts (something This Week appeared to be attempting with their Khan and Levitt interview) or at least a firm challenge to the people playing fast and loose with them. Instead what MTP and Gregory did was allow Lazio some free (and valuable) air time to attack a fellow candidate using an inflammatory issue and arguments that have very little basis in fact. Though you’d never know that from watching. Alas, for some PolitiFact. Segment below. This Week below that.

This Week: Debating the Ground Zero Islamic Center

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.