Blast from Past: Dick Cavett 'Genuinely Ashamed' of Americans for Opposing the Mosque

In Monday's “Best of the Web Today” compilation, the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto highlighted a New York Times online column posted Friday, from “superannuated erstwhile TV host Dick Cavett,” who “reports that the mosque controversy brought back childhood memories.” Cavett recalled World War II when he “heard an uncle of mine endorse a sentiment attributed to our Admiral 'Bull' Halsey: 'If I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I’d kick her in the belly.'”
        
In the post provocatively titled “Real Americans, Please Stand Up,” as if those who disagree with him are not “real” Americans – at least they aren't to the New York Times editors -- Cavett then equated feticide with peaceful opposition to the mosque near Ground Zero:

These are not proud moments in my heritage. But now, I’m genuinely ashamed of us. How sad this whole mosque business is. It doesn’t take much, it seems, to lift the lid and let our home-grown racism and bigotry overflow. We have collectively taken a pratfall on a moral whoopee cushion.

Later he denigrated mosque critics as he derided “airborne sludge” from Rush Limbaugh:

A heyday is being had by a posse of the cheesiest Republican politicos (Lazio, Palin, quick-change artist  John McCain and, of course, the self-anointed St. Joan of 9/11, R. Giuliani). Balanced, of course by plenty of cheesy Democrats. And of course Rush L. dependably pollutes the atmosphere with his particular brand of airborne sludge.