In the course of a nice speech at an Iftar dinner event, the President said this:

As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.

“The writ of the Founders must endure” — funny stuff, coming from this guy. We’re not going to join the political discussion of this issue, though we’ll make an observation. Even assuming the very best of intentions of the builders of the Ground Zero Mosque, a questionable premise, their aesthetic judgment is appalling in building the 15 storey structure two blocks from this; moreover, it will probably be pretty creepy for many New Yorkers to hear the call to prayer five times a day at the WTC site.

What’s most interesting to us is the consistency of Barack Obama in taking positions opposed by landslide majorities of Americans, in this case 68% or so. In a situation where Bill Clinton would triangulate and figure out some formula to make a majority at least somewhat satisfied, Obama stands above it all and makes categorical pronouncements opposed by a supermajority of US citizens. So once again we are drawn to wonder whether Obama is politically suicidal or has a grand scheme to make this all work in his favor.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 14th, 2010 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Democrats, General, Polling, Religion, Republicans, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.