Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Speaks Out And AC360 Makes Me Ponder Whether Or Not We're Devolving As A Nation

Duuuudes. What was THAT?! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I watched the interview with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and thought it was quite good. Soledad O'Brien was appropriately tough and Rauf explained himself well. It was thought-provoking television. So I was feeling pretty good news-wise when it came time to hang with the 360 kids. Sure, it gave me pause to learn from Anderson Cooper that they would be spending the whole hour on the topic (which can often be translated as "this will not end well"), but I didn't let it get me down.

I wasn't even too bothered when I saw Andy Sullivan there. Again. After all, we had Fareed Zakaria, and he's like a bottomless bucket of reasonable awesomesauce. So I remained in "this is all good" mode. And initially, it seemed like maybe it was all good. Yeah, we were smacked with some Crazy right off the bat (a "veiled threat"? WTF?), but it was countered with rationality, and my God the patience of Bruce Feiler (someone give that man a medal!).

But then it just kept going on and on, and suddenly we were like in this wurlitzer of sadness and irrationality, and there was show-pimping, and loudness, and Jesus Christ did Cliff May suggest we tier religions by floor?!! By the time it was all over, even the mere thought of bullet-pointing out this hot mess left me wanting to alternately curl into the fetal position and flail in front of my TV saying, "I can't even! I can't even!"

*DEEP BREATH*

So. That's where I am about now. How are you kids doing? Obviously, our friends at 360 can't be blamed for other people's craziness, but much of this hour probably could have been better. First of all, hey, you know how this whole thing is about moderate practicing Muslims? Maybe we could have heard from some of them. Or even, you know, one. Best I can tell, Fareed is pretty secular.

With polls indicating so many people opposed to Cordoba House, you would think that our teevee friends could find some individuals who, you know, aren't so nutty. Anderson indicated that Andy Sullivan and Rosaleen Tallon didn't strike him as extremist. In regards to Rosaleen, I don't know enough about her to make any kind of judgment. I'm very sorry she lost her brother and I do feel she has the absolute right to speak out against this center on sensitivity grounds. I don't, however, think her grief gives her a license to be irrational. Some of the things she said tonight just did not make sense.

Andy is another story. If he doesn't strike Anderson as extremist it's because our anchor didn't read his blog. I did. I'm a glutton for punishment I guess. But I also really did want to understand where this guy is coming from. Well, now I know. And I wish I didn't. He's actually not unique at all. We know the drill: tea-partier, Glenn Beck rallier, extremely anti-Obama (we're talking POTUS-photoshopped-as-a-terrorist territory here, people), anti-Muslim, grumblings about immigration, affiliations with far right-wingers like Pam Geller, posts signifying birtherism, all the bases are covered. I especially love the fact that his blog gets a CNN shout out when I'm pretty sure some of his posts are literally copy-and-pastes of those fact-averse email forwards you might receive from your crazy uncle Joe.

As for Kathleen Parker and Elliot Spitzer, yeah, I know they pretty much had to have them on, so this isn't really the 360 kids fault, but it felt so forced and tacky. Look how the new hosts tackle this important issue together! Aren't you excited to watch their show?! Yeah. The answer to that would be a no. Hell, even the Silver Fox had to work for like a year to win my love. I'm thinking flop, but hey, never say never.

Anyhoo! Thank God for Isha Sesay, whose appearance at the end there cleaned a little bit of the preceding mess out of my brain. Mercy!

Oh, I almost forgot, Tom Foreman did do a brief fact-check on some of the stuff floating around the interwebs (and apparently Andy's head) about Rauf, so good for that.