Daisy Khan said every good tweet deserves a retort. And when Sarah Palin called the proposed mosque near Ground Zero "an unnecessary provocation," Khan started typing.
"She tweeted us, that meant we had to respond with a countertweet," said Khan, one of the founders of the Cordoba Institute, the group planning to build an Islamic Cultural Center on Park Place, two blocks from the World Trade Center site.
Khan wrote back: "Let thou not tweet about bleeding hearts let's meet refudiate thine mosque charge; Muslim YMCA long live USA a ground for all faiths.“
Her message quoted a word the former Alaska Governor had seemingly invented over the weekend: "refudiate." Palin herself quickly realized she'd gotten creative with the English language; soon after her original tweet, she tweeted: '"Refudiate," "misunderestimate," "wee-wee'd up." English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'
Of course, Palin is not alone in criticizing the proposed mosque; New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio has said the planned location is hurtful to 9/11 families. And at least one polls found a majority of New Yorkers opposed to the project.
Lower Manhattan's Community Board 1 has already approved the plans, but organizers say they'd still need to raise about 100 million dollars before construction could begin.
