Soledad O’Brien brings every single watt of brainpower she has to Larry King’s desk as she speaks with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. And we’re starting to see why Rauf has been kept under wraps for so long:

“If we move from that location, the story will be the radicals have taken over the discourse. The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack… Our national security now hinges on how we negotiate this, how we speak about it.”

However soft-spoken, a threat is still a threat. And yet he also says:

The imam told O’Brien “had I known [the controversy] would happen we certainly would never have done this.” Asked if he meant he would not have picked the location, Rauf said, “we would not have done something that would create more divisiveness.”

But you did, Imam Rauf. You’ve failed spectacularly at your professed goal of mutual tolerance and healing and bridge-building and all the other buzzwords. Now you’re telling us that if we don’t all applaud your mistake, it will be seen as an attack on Islam? If we don’t do what the terrorists want, the terrorists win?

By all means, let’s have more emotional blackmail, and more condescending lectures about how anyone who dares to oppose this thing is a dupe and a bigot. That’s really turning the tide of public opinion.

P.S. When you trim away all the soothing New Age rhetoric, what he’s saying is this: “Islam is a religion of peace. Which is why if I don’t get what I want, people will die.”