This post was written by a CMR friend who goes by the name “Eponymous.”

The mainstream media would have us believe that Imam Rauf is a bridgebuilder. The Imam has stated as much and we should initially accept him at his word. But we should remember the maxim: Trust but verify.

His own words give us great pause:

“We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims.”

Then in his interview with Soledad O’Brien he informs us that:

“if we move, that means the radicals have taken over the discourse. ..The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack…The radicals will shape the discourse on both sides.”

I am beginning to see more clearly. Our builder of bridges wishes to create an equivalence between “radicals” on both sides. So let us review:

The radical Islamists hijack planes and murder 3,000 innocents in the name of Islam while radicals in the United States hold placards protesting the building of a mosque two blocks from ground zero.

Radical Islamists strap bombs to themselves and explode them in markets burning and killing dozens, while radicals in the United States threaten to burn the Quran.

This Imam should not be permitted to shape this conversation. His hypocrisy betrays him. If he were truly the bridge builder with a foot in both worlds, rather than spewing such rhetoric, he would point out the LACK of equivalence on both sides. He would have used the opportunity of the CNN interview to herald American exceptionalism, to point out to the world that the issues were being discussed openly and emotionally but without violence…that this was uniquely enabled by our right to free speech which many in the Muslim world are denied. He would have called upon the Muslim world to follow the peaceful example of the Unites States and ask all Muslims to seek peace without regard to the matter of moving the mosque (or not). That would be the dialog of a bridge builder.

Instead we get threats of escalating violence in the Muslim world if he does not get what he wants. I wait for the moment when we say: “But Grandma…what big teeth you have.”