Dan Rather this weekend smacked down the entire panel of the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" over the press hyping Pastor Terry Jones's threats to burn Korans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.

"Media in general bear some responsibility here by running so hard with this story so early and putting such comments as you just said not only on the air, but high on the air, giving it play," Rather said.

When everyone on the set - including Matthews, Katty Kay of the BBC, Andrea Mitchell of NBC, and David Ignatius of the Washington Post - disagreed with him, Rather pushed back, "We do have a responsibility, however you want to describe us, as gatekeepers."

He continued, "We could do a better job of putting it in perspective, putting it into context" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

I am opposed to the building of the "mosque" two blocks from Ground Zero. I want it built on Ground Zero.

He says it's because Islam was "stolen" from the real Muslims at the Twin Towers, and it should be given back on the same spot. But he's not finished:

There is a McDonald's two blocks from Ground Zero. Trust me, McDonald's has killed far more people than the terrorists.

And the terrorists remind Moore of the Catholics on the Supreme Court:

Those are the two most prevalent words uttered or typed on this tragically historic day. 

Never.  Forget.

For many, September 11, 2001, was a day that will forever be seared into the minds of those who were witness.  On that day, the nation was awoken by a harsh reality that some people want nothing more than to destroy our freedom, our way of life.  It was a day that 19 hijackers, four airplanes, two towers, and one deranged ideology brought the threat of terrorism to the forefront in our country.

But a mere nine years after 9/11, has the leadership of this nation, both administrative and media related, already forgotten?

Yesterday, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, the President of the United States of America had the tone deaf audacity to ignore the concept of time and place, choosing to defend the building of the Ground Zero victory mosque.  In his news conference, President Obama said that the proposed New York City mosque has run up against the "extraordinary sensitivities around 9/11."  In other words, he hears the sensitivities, he simply does not care. 

Obama elaborates:

On Saturday’s Good Morning America on ABC, during a discussion of the Ground Zero mosque and the possibility of Koran burning in Florida by Pastor Terry Jones, after anchor Dan Harris brought up the naive liberal expectation that President Obama would be able to improve relations with the Muslim world because of his family connections to Islam and his inaugural speech reaching out to Muslims, ABC News consultant Richard Clarke suggested that Obama’s inaugural address had "helped a lot" to make America safer before being derailed by recent controversies.  Clarke's suggestion came after he had argued that recent events have made America "a lot less safe," with the conversation continuing:

DAN HARRIS: But, you know, there was all this talk when President Obama was inaugurated that here's a man whose middle name was "Hussein," he spent part of his childhood in a Muslim country, he's made a LOT of effort to reach out to the Muslim world, and, in fact, gave an impassioned set of statements on this very issue yesterday. Has none of that helped?

RICHARD CLARKE: Well, it did help. When he said in his inaugural address, "America is not at war with Islam," that helped a lot. But the recent controversies have undone all of that.

Clarke – a former counterterrorism advisor for both the Clinton and Bush administrations who has a history of sharp criticism of the Bush administration’s response to 9/11 – later in the segment vaguely impugned the Bush administration’s reaction to the 9/11 attacks: "We have to anticipate that there will be another attack. And we have to think about what our reaction's going to be when that occurs. Last time, a lot of our reaction was counterproductive."

Imagine for a moment you were the editor of a magazine owned by the Washington Post and Newsweek. Would you a day before the ninth anniversary of 9/11 publish an article with the following headline:

The Talibanization of America
Viewed from Pakistan, the rise of U.S. Islamophobia looks depressingly familiar. 

Seems rather inflammatory hours before such a solemn day in America, don't you think?

Yet, such was published Friday by Foreign Policy magazine, an affiliate of the Slate Group. 

Sadly, the contents - which in paragraph three equated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with prospective Koran burner Terry Jones - will likely be even more offensive to the vast majority of Americans especially on September 11: