we have or he has been in contact with the imam in new york city. he has agreed to move the location. >> but from sources in the office of the imam no deal to move park 51 and the man in the middle -- >> i have made this morning contact with the office of the imam and got the commitment to fly out to new york and meet with him in the company of pastor jones to discuss and come to a decision on relocating the mosque. our special guest, imam mohammad mosri. >> rendition unchecked. an appeals court tosses the lawsuit that flew its victims. jonathan turley joins me. steven hawking's argument. no god is needed to create a universe. just gravity and quantum theory. our guest, his co-author and david letterman and i play for a possible 2012 presidential candidate. >> it could be another bush. we haven't had enough of them. >> that's his campaign slogan. >> i'll reveal what it is so somebody called jeb up and tell him to watch. all of the news and commentary now on "countdown." good evening from new york. this just in from kerry sanders in florida. we're a little back to square one he now quotes pastor terry jones of the dove church in that state. i'm praying, he tells sanders, to decide what to do next. two days before the ninth anniversary of 9/11, 48 hours before the planned burning of korans by a small florida church and our fifth story on the "countdown" tonight. the koran burning has been suspended. the pastor of the church said the burning was canceled. it is too late to call back no matter what happens next already rippling through afghanistan. we'll have that later in the hour. we begin with pastor jones of the dove world outreach center in gainesville, florida, who decided months to go to burn korans to take a stand against radical islam and american accommodation of it. despite a direct appeal by president obama via abc news today on that program and despite a personal appeal in a phone call from defense secretary gates today because of the violence it could inspire against u.s. troops. jones continued to say only god's word would sway him. that word apparently came today from our guest or via our guest standing by from the islamic society of central florida who says he has arranged a meeting between jones and the imam of the islamic center planned for two blocks from ground zero in new york city. jones described this as a deal to move that islamic center in new york and said then that not only was he canceling his koran burning saturday but that no one should burn any korans. that was what he said then. >> we are of course now against any other group burning korans obviously. we have accomplished our goal. we have accomplished what we feel god wants us to do. we would right now ask no one to burn korans. we are very, very strong on that. as strong as we were that they should burn korans. it is not the time to do it. >> mr. jones was told, however, that new york organizers of that islamic center have not agreed to move it jones was asked whether he felt tricked in exactly what he was told. >> the imam would move the mosque from ground zero. i was told he cannot move it tomorrow. i said that is fine. it cannot be in ten years. those were exact words i said. the man said that's fine. i said now he has agreed to move the mosque away from the ground zero area. yes, he has. that's what i was told. do i feel tricked? yes, of course. i don't feel tricked. i was lied to. that's why at this time i'm not prepared to believe that. i'm not prepared to make that accusation. i want to just wait and see and i'm right now believing his word. i find it very hard to believe that he would lie to me. >> that was followed by jones' associate pastor coming out to reporters this evening and suggesting they might return to being just as for burning korans as they are currently against burning korans if the new york city islamic center does not move. >> we have not canceled the burning on saturday. we've suspended it until we get a confirmation on the information we were given today in a meeting full of different members of the church on what was said. >> with us now as promised, an imam from islamic society of central florida. thank you for joining us today. we appreciate it sincerely. >> thank you, keith. glad to be here. >> where does this stand? do you know? pastor jones seem to think the leaders of the new york center agreed to move the center further away from the location of ground zero. is he mistaken about that? what exactly did you tell him? >> prior to going inside to meet with him when i submitted a request to meet with him, i spent an hour in the sun and during that time i talked to the media and explained exactly what i came to do. and that's exactly what i went inside and did and that is i told him i arranged for a meeting between me, himself and imam abdul raul. that the imam in new york has through his office agreed for us to meet up in new york if he gives up the event on saturday. i told him clearly i am not in any way connected to the event in new york. i have no control over it. i cannot promise you that it will be moved but my position is for it to be relocated to a more ideal position somewhere we can avoid the controversy on that side. i said i advocate for that prior to this incident here and i'm willing to go personally to new york to do that. he clearly understood that there were no cut deals over there in new york. neither him nor i spoke to the imam in new york and we were under no impression that a deal has been made. a deal where he gives up this and the imam in new york gives up that. >> if there was no deal, what's your reaction to him saying he was going to new york to arrange how quickly and far away the park 51 center was going to be moved? >> the main reason that we came out and he agreed to call off the event on saturday was not centered on what's happening in new york or not. it was based on the fact that today is the last day of ramadan and tomorrow morning in a few hours in the middle east and throughout the world, muslims will be celebrating one of the two holiest days and during that hundreds of millions of people will be heading to mosques where a message will be delivered by imams, some of whom are radical and may use his event on saturday to radicalize the use and to turn people against us in the united states so i told him time is of the essence. if you wait until friday or saturday, it will be too little too late any way. you have to make a decision now and so people across the world will hear your message that you canceled this so that tomorrow morning we would not see riots and see demonstrations in the streets of pakistan, afghanistan and elsewhere. >> imam musri, the premise of this as you left the first meeting with pastor jones as you understood it and as you understood him to understand it was you believe that it would be a good gesture if the new york center was moved further away from ground zero. he certainly did. you were going join him in new york to talk about the prospect of doing and that perhaps to advocate for that as a gesture of good will as the stopping of the burning of korans would be. is that the way you thought it was when you left that meeting? >> precisely. i repeated that three or four times inside the building. >> let me ask you one question about that that equates -- essentially the burning of the korans and building of this islamic community center at new york at some distance from ground zero, these two things have somehow become equated or perhaps conflated. why in your opinion as a leader of your faith, are these things even remotely connected and why shouldn't there be an islamic center exactly where they have it planned at 51 park place in manhattan? >> i did not think they were connected at all. i thought that he connected them clearly when he stepped out in front of the cameras but inside i told him those are two separate issues completely separate. and the issue of burning the koran is something that will trigger reaction across the muslim world and it is not congruent with his christian beliefs but the project in new york is something totally different. it is not breaking any law. it is in the constitutional rights of the muslim community of new york to do it. i told him my personal take on it that respecting the wishes of large number of americans who feel the controversy could be avoided by relocating the mosque, i said i'm for that position at this point. and i wish to talk to the imam in new york on that but these two events are not linked at all in my opinion. >> i'll close where i began in trying to understand where it all stands right now. do you understand where it all stands right now? is this church going to go ahead with the latest pledge not to do anything on saturday? is that at least going to happen? will there be a meeting? are you going to new york? >> i believe that pastor jones would keep his word. that's what i urge of him. and otherwise all that we have done for two days in a row will go to waste. it wasn't just what i told him but it was the many christian leaders who called him and the messages from president obama to the secretary of defense, everybody talked to him. it wasn't me but i gave him a face to see a muslim in front of him and talk to him and direct his frustration and anger towards me rather than to something he never seen. and towards a book. so he feels that we have a deal, and he is going to give me the time to make the contact with new york and arrange for the meeting and follow through with our planned event to meet with imam abdul raul and try to reach a deal there. but i do not believe at this time that pastor jones will go back to what he was planning to do on saturday. >> hopefully that is the truth. imam muhammad musri, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, keith. >> let's turn to michael eric dyson. welcome back, professor. >> always good to be here, brother olbermann. do you think you know what happened here and happening here and the imam's faith that we are not going to have a koran burning on saturday is justified? >> i think it is overreaching. he's a kind and gentle man, but i think he's overreaching here unfortunately because i think that the unpredictable and arbitrary terrorism being practiced, the rhetorical terrorism, the bigotry of pastor jones has to be called for what it is. this is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to engage in the most narcissistic form of ma nip lagts of media and the broader world. a 50-member church commanding international and global awareness precisely because of his recalcitrants as refusal to ak knock the basic principles of his faith, which teach him not to hate other people, not to dog other people, not to demonize other people. even jesus says i have members and sheep of other flocks that you don't even know about. we have to at least have enough religious humility to say he may not be christian but they have honorable members that deserve be to be heard equally as much as christians themselves. >> to say nothing of standing in the bible. how do the politics look to you on this at the moment? the president spoke indirectly to jones. i said directly i meant indirectly via the interview with george stephanopolous. but the republicans here who have spoken out have done so reluctantly or belatedly. john mccain did it today. why did our political leaders have such trouble on this one? >> i think let's be honest here. it's troubling to admit on the far right pastor jones may express opinions and beliefs of some of the core ideological tenets of these folk that they don't want to come out and say. he becoming both whipping boy and icon at the same time. he's useful on both sides of the debate. mr. obama speaking indirectly and secretary gates directly suggests that we didn't deal with terrorist and we didn't negotiate with terrorists here and here's a man commanding such international and global media ink because he refuses to acknowledge the fundamental principles of decency that any religion should teach. people said to martin luther king jr., don't build your mosque. no. don't bring your march here. don't come to birmingham, alabama. don't come here. you're an extremist. seven clergymen got together in good faith and said don't build your movement here. don't bring it here. martin luther king jr. said i must do it now. they said be gradual. he said we can't take the drug of gradualism. we must talk about the fierce urgency of now and he said you call me an extremist. i used to be upset by that but now i say an extremist for bigotry or extremist for love? i think if pastor jones were an extremist for love and compassion that would be a great thing. i'm afraid that even if the imam decided to move the mosque, that looks like a victory for compassion and sensitivity. in reality it's a concession to the worst form of bigotry and reactionary forces that would indeed have the upper hand again. >> lastly, is there still some kernel of good news in this? of all the things we don't know and obviously the imam doesn't know and the associate pastor doesn't know and pastor doesn't know, the parts of the deal that we seem to believe are intact. koran burning canceled. moderate new york muslims to meet with fundmentalist florida christian. is that good news? >> it's good news when people sit down at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood and talk across ideological differences. at the same time, i think it's problematic again because it looks as if there's a distinction between us and them. the problem is them over there. the muslims. and those of us over here, christians we're right. there are problems within christian fundamentalism that are problematic. i'm an ordained baptist minister. i find problematic the beliefs of christian fundamentalists. we serve the same god but at the end of the day it doesn't look like that to me. the problem is not between us and them. it's between divisive and bigoted beliefs and a great preacher said the bigot is a person who makes an idol of his commitments. we can't worship at the altar of our commitments. we have to worship at the altar of a god who loves everybody. we should be open to that. conversation is great. conversion to humanity and compassion even better. >> georgetown university professor michael eric dyson, it's always a pleasure. thank you again. >> thank you for having me. just the threat of koran burning led to distribution of pamphlets. we'll talk to the father of one of our troops in the exact area in which those threats were made next on "countdown." did you know - after age forty, your body can lose up to eight percent of muscle per decade? 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[ male announcer ] want a great deal on car insurance? go to esurance. think progress has spoken to the wife of imam abdul rauf in new york, daisy kahn, about a conversation she had or had earlier today with imam mohammed musri from orlando. he joins us now from phone. walk us through this. what did daisy tell you? >> i'll just read from my notes if you have a second. she said that we've not agreed to anything other than meeting with the pastor at a future point down the road when cooler heads prevailed. she also said we reject any comparison to what we were prepared to build in new york and what the pastor was ready to destroy in florida. again, she said that she emphasized that the meeting was not planned for saturday but rather at a point in the future when people have had time to reflect on it. the last point she made was we do not want to take away from the solemn day of 9/11. that's why they don't want to meet on saturday. she said our center is not about 9/11. the koran is not about 9/11. we wish to commemorate 9/11 with prayers for the families of the victims. >> did the imam in orlando, did he call with an offer basically or how did this transpire? do you know the nature of the transaction supposedly involved here and how that happened? >> from what we understand imam musri called saying i'm here talking to pastor jones and i want to give him something to try to negotiate this compromise. initially he said would you be willing to renegotiate the location of the center. she said no, of course not. and then he said well would you agree to meet with them. she said sure, we'll meet with anybody but we would like to meet with him down the road at some point. she was a bit surprised when imam musri and jones suggested they were going to come up almost immediately. >> are we getting a picture of this that imam musri said i got you the meeting to discuss moving park 51 and i personally think it should be moved and that's what he said and pastor jones heard we've got a meeting to discuss when it's going to be moved? >> forgive me for my cynical take on this. i think pastor jones was trapped in a box. he felt he had to back down after the call from secretary gates. the "ground zero mosque" was never an issue he was talking about. it was not on his radar and not the reason for burning the korans. i think in trying to get out of the box he was in, he tried to shift and do bait and switch and shift on to the mosque issue and so i think that's a little bit of at least a strategy of jones trying to put the onus back on imam rauf and say this is his issue, he has to deal with it when pastor jones was hijacking the nation with this ridiculous koran burning attempt. >> faiz, great thanks for being with us on such short notice. thank you. whether the florida pastor goes through with his pledge or not, the cliche of "fahrenheit 451" coming to life has already sparked anti-american protests. those demonstrations most notably in afghanistan and already an attempt by insurgents there to capitalize on it with anti-american pamphlets. also, the state department issued a travel alert to americans traveling abroad. in kabul, hundreds of protesters chanted death to america. nothing particularly unusual about that except for the timing. a cleric at a mosque in kabul said of the planned koran burning quote, it's an in