At the New York Times, Anne Barnard has an excellent profile of the man who’s been relentlessly, dishonestly demonized by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and the Fox News Bigot Brigade: Feisal Abdul Rauf’s Balancing Act in Mosque Furor.

Not everyone in the Cairo lecture hall last February was buying the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s message. As he talked of reconciliation between America and Middle Eastern Muslims — his voice soft, almost New Agey — some questioners were so suspicious that he felt the need to declare that he was not an American agent.

Muslims need to understand and soothe Americans who fear them, the imam said; they should be conciliatory, not judgmental, toward the West and Israel.

But one young Egyptian asked: Wasn’t the United States financing the speaking tour that had brought the imam to Cairo because his message conveniently echoed United States interests?

“I’m not an agent from any government, even if some of you may not believe it,” the imam replied. “I’m not. I’m a peacemaker.” …

In recent weeks, Mr. Abdul Rauf has barely been heard from as a national political debate explodes over his dream project, including, somewhere in its planned 15 stories, a mosque. Opponents have called his project an act of insensitivity, even a monument to terrorism.

In his absence — he is now on another Middle East speaking tour sponsored by the State Department — a host of allegations have been floated: that he supports terrorism; that his father, who worked at the behest of the Egyptian government, was a militant; that his publicly expressed views mask stealth extremism. Some charges, the available record suggests, are unsupported. Some are simplifications of his ideas. In any case, calling him a jihadist appears even less credible than calling him a United States agent.

Read the whole thing. The bigots behind the anti-mosque movement have been shamelessly distorting and lying about Imam Rauf’s pro-America, anti-jihad record.

And I’m certain the “Ground Zero Mosque” bad craziness outbreak is making it even more difficult — if not impossible — for Imam Rauf to promote American ideals to Islamic audiences, when so many Americans have apparently lost sight of those ideals themselves.