WITHOUT W, THEY CURRENTLY HAVE NO ADULT SUPERVISION:

The Right's New Religious Bigotry (Michelle Goldberg, 8/09/10, Daily Beast)

On September 11, Geert Wilders, the ultranationalist Dutch politician who has suggested banning the Koran as hate speech, is speaking at ground zero, part of a rally against the Islamic community center being built nearby. He’ll be joined by Newt Gingrich, and in all likelihood other significant conservatives as well. Not long ago, the American right resisted the kind of overt Islamophobia that animates reactionary parties in Europe. The embrace of Wilders shows that this is no longer the case. A new type of religious bigotry has entered American politics, one more blatant than anything we’ve seen since the Twin Towers fell.

Even during the most terrifying days after September 11, or in the crazed and febrile period preceding the invasion of Iraq, the spokespeople for the American right mostly refrained from the outright demonization of Muslims. Some of the credit goes to George W. Bush, who, despite the odd slip of the tongue about America’s “crusade,” was usually careful to emphasize that American Muslims are not an internal enemy.