As noted yesterday & often, this Administration is tone-deaf: On mosque, Obama backtracks from his endorsement, then clarifies & denies backtracking.
David Axelrod got him elected. Together they will be responsible for getting many Democrats unelected in November. I am sometimes left to wonder if either cares.
I am right because I say I am right. It's my way or the highway, and the consequences and what America thinks be damned.
From The New York Times:
Faced with withering Republican criticism of his defense of the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque near ground zero, President Obama quickly recalibrated his remarks on Saturday, a sign that he has waded into even more treacherous political waters than the White House had at first realized.
In brief comments during a family trip to the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Obama said he was not endorsing the New York project, but simply trying to uphold the broader principle that government should “treat everybody equally,” regardless of religion.
“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” Mr. Obama said. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
But Mr. Obama’s attempt to clarify his remarks, less than 24 hours after his initial comments at a White House iftar, a Ramadan sunset dinner, pushed the president even deeper into the thorny debate about Islam, national identity and what it means to be an American — a move that is riskier for him than for his predecessors.
From the moment he took the oath of office, using his entire name, Barack Hussein Obama, as he swore to protect and defend the Constitution, Mr. Obama has personified the hopes of many Americans about tolerance and inclusion. He has devoted himself to reaching out to the Muslim world, vowing, as he did in Cairo last year, “a new beginning.”
[T]he criticism was so intense that the White House ultimately issued an elaboration on the president’s clarification, insisting that the president was “not backing off in any way” from the comments he made Friday night.
White House aides say Mr. Obama was well aware of the risks. “He understands the politics of it,” David Axelrod, his senior adviser, said in an interview.
The Washington Post has an article entitled "Obama: Backing Muslims' right to build NYC mosque is not an endorsement" that summarizes the President's clarification as follows and notes:
One day after President Obama defended the freedom of Muslims to build an Islamic complex near New York's Ground Zero, he offered a less forceful version of that position on Saturday: Yes, Muslims have that right, Obama said -- but that doesn't mean he believes it is the right thing for them to do.
Obama's remarks . . . unsettled many of his fellow Democrats, who would have preferred that he not embroil himself, and them, in a controversy that the White House had previously deemed to be a local matter. It is also one that could distract from their efforts to spend the August recess focusing on the economy.
"It's going to play poorly for many Democrats and will be used as a political club by those Republicans willing to exploit it," said one senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill, where the president's party is worried that it could lose control of one and possibly both houses of Congress this fall. The aide asked for anonymity to speak freely.
White House officials said the president's comments Saturday were not at odds with what he had said the night before -- and they insisted they should not be seen as Obama backing down because of political pressure. He was merely clarifying his position, they said. Yet Obama had left the distinction between principle and prudence unstated in his declaration Friday night that "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone 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."
As with Obama's decision to pursue an overhaul of the health-care system and to go to court to block Arizona's new immigration law, this was a fight the president could have sidestepped -- but one, his advisers say, that speaks to his larger principles.
However, to his critics it suggests a disregard for the wishes of the public. "It feels very Bush-esque," said Matthew Dowd, who was a top political adviser to former President George W. Bush until they parted ways over the Iraq war. Dowd said Republicans will exploit the controversy to ask, "Does this guy listen, or does he think he's too smart for all of us?"
I am right because I say I am right. It's my way or the highway, and the consequences and what America thinks be damned.
From The New York Times:
Faced with withering Republican criticism of his defense of the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque near ground zero, President Obama quickly recalibrated his remarks on Saturday, a sign that he has waded into even more treacherous political waters than the White House had at first realized.
In brief comments during a family trip to the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Obama said he was not endorsing the New York project, but simply trying to uphold the broader principle that government should “treat everybody equally,” regardless of religion.
“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” Mr. Obama said. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”
But Mr. Obama’s attempt to clarify his remarks, less than 24 hours after his initial comments at a White House iftar, a Ramadan sunset dinner, pushed the president even deeper into the thorny debate about Islam, national identity and what it means to be an American — a move that is riskier for him than for his predecessors.
From the moment he took the oath of office, using his entire name, Barack Hussein Obama, as he swore to protect and defend the Constitution, Mr. Obama has personified the hopes of many Americans about tolerance and inclusion. He has devoted himself to reaching out to the Muslim world, vowing, as he did in Cairo last year, “a new beginning.”
[T]he criticism was so intense that the White House ultimately issued an elaboration on the president’s clarification, insisting that the president was “not backing off in any way” from the comments he made Friday night.
White House aides say Mr. Obama was well aware of the risks. “He understands the politics of it,” David Axelrod, his senior adviser, said in an interview.
The Washington Post has an article entitled "Obama: Backing Muslims' right to build NYC mosque is not an endorsement" that summarizes the President's clarification as follows and notes:
One day after President Obama defended the freedom of Muslims to build an Islamic complex near New York's Ground Zero, he offered a less forceful version of that position on Saturday: Yes, Muslims have that right, Obama said -- but that doesn't mean he believes it is the right thing for them to do.
Obama's remarks . . . unsettled many of his fellow Democrats, who would have preferred that he not embroil himself, and them, in a controversy that the White House had previously deemed to be a local matter. It is also one that could distract from their efforts to spend the August recess focusing on the economy.
"It's going to play poorly for many Democrats and will be used as a political club by those Republicans willing to exploit it," said one senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill, where the president's party is worried that it could lose control of one and possibly both houses of Congress this fall. The aide asked for anonymity to speak freely.
White House officials said the president's comments Saturday were not at odds with what he had said the night before -- and they insisted they should not be seen as Obama backing down because of political pressure. He was merely clarifying his position, they said. Yet Obama had left the distinction between principle and prudence unstated in his declaration Friday night that "Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone 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."
As with Obama's decision to pursue an overhaul of the health-care system and to go to court to block Arizona's new immigration law, this was a fight the president could have sidestepped -- but one, his advisers say, that speaks to his larger principles.
However, to his critics it suggests a disregard for the wishes of the public. "It feels very Bush-esque," said Matthew Dowd, who was a top political adviser to former President George W. Bush until they parted ways over the Iraq war. Dowd said Republicans will exploit the controversy to ask, "Does this guy listen, or does he think he's too smart for all of us?"
posted by Sid Cottingham | 5:19 AM
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