Maybe, for Barack Obama, it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.

When the president skittered back from his grandiose declaration at an iftar celebration at the White House Friday that Muslims enjoy freedom of religion in America and have the right to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan, he offered a Clintonesque parsing.

“I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,” he said the morning after he commented on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. “I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.”

Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Perfectly Unclear President: You cannot take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when, lo and behold, Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack. What is so frightening about Fox News?

Some critics have said the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers would be to allow a mosque to be built near ground zero.

Actually, the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers is the moral timidity that would ban a mosque from that neighborhood.

Our enemies struck at our heart, but did they also warp our identity?

The war against the terrorists is not a war against Islam. In fact, you can’t have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam.

George W. Bush understood this. And it is odd to see Barack Obama less clear about this matter than his predecessor. It’s time for W. to weigh in.

This — along with immigration reform and AIDS in Africa — was one of his points of light. As the man who twice went to war in the Muslim world, he has something of an obligation to add his anti-Islamophobia to this mosque madness. W. needs to get his bullhorn back out.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are both hyper-articulate former law professors. But Clinton never presented himself as a moral guide to the country. So when he weaseled around, or triangulated on some issues, it was part of his ultra-fallible persona — and consistent with his identity as a New Democrat looking for a Third Way.

But Obama presents himself as a paragon of high principle. So when he flops around on things like “don’t ask, don’t tell” or shrinks back from one of his deepest beliefs about the freedom of religion anywhere and everywhere in America, it’s not pretty. Even worse, this is the man who staked his historical reputation on a new and friendlier engagement with the Muslim world. The man who extended his hand to Tehran has withdrawn his hand from Park Place.

Paranoid about looking weak, Obama allowed himself to be weakened by perfectly predictable Republican hysteria. Which brings us to Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich fancies himself an intellectual, a historian, a deep thinker — the opposite number, you might say, of Sarah Palin.

Yet here is Gingrich attempting to out-Palin Palin on Fox News: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.” There is no more demagogic analogy than that.

Have any of the screaming critics noticed that there already are two mosques in the same neighborhood — one four blocks away and one 12 blocks away.

Should they be dismantled? And what about the louche liquor stores and strip clubs in the periphery of the sacred ground?

By now you have to be willfully blind not to know that the imam in charge of the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the moderate Muslim we have allegedly been yearning for.

So look where we are. The progressive Democrat in the White House, the first president of the United States with Muslim roots, has been morally trumped by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, two moderate Republicans who have spoken bravely and lucidly about not demonizing and defaming an entire religion in the name of fighting its radicals.

Criticizing his fellow Republicans, Governor Christie said that while he understood the pain and sorrow of family members who lost loved ones on 9/11, “we cannot paint all of Islam with that brush.”

He charged the president with trying to turn the issue into a political football. But that is not quite right. It already was a political football and the president fumbled it.

Just like Obama, Ms Pelosi has strategically retreated from her position:

http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2010/08/pelosi-backtracks-from-investigate.html

It's still interesting to note that her first impulse was a fascist one.

I have seen people claim that "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." In fact, it is: it contains the method by which it can be modified. You CAN establish a State Religion, or prohibit specific ones, using the correct channels. Further, there is precedent for prohibiting certain acts called for by religion when it is against established law, such as sacrifices.

Prehaps our Maureen Dowd can explain why St. Nicholas Greek Orthadox church hasn't been rebuilt yet.

But no, the Hamasque gets greenlighted.

You CAN establish a State Religion, or prohibit specific ones, using the correct channels.

Of course. The Constitution was written on fine parchment via a quill pen by a steady hand. It wasn't etched in stone upon a high place, and brought down to the people by a chosen prophet.

Now, if you'd like to go ahead and try and amend the Constution to do any of those things, feel free to do so. Best of luck getting that out of Congress. And better luck in getting that approved by 38 states.

I really wouldn't recommend a Constitutional Convention. This set of jackalopes might decide to pitch it all and start from scratch. Remember, many of them seem to think that all rights and privileges belong to the Federal government, who then grants you the few rights you have.

An update - mosque yes, church no:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/ground-zero-church-will-not-be-rebuilt-church-officials-shocked.html

By now you have to be willfully blind not to know that the imam in charge of the project, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the moderate Muslim we have allegedly been yearning for.

From Wiki: During an interview on New York WABC radio in June 2010, Abdul Rauf declined to say whether he agreed with the U.S. State Department's designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization. Responding to the question, Rauf said, "I'm not a politician. I try to avoid the issues. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question... I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy. Ref: Feisal Abdul Rauf in Wiki

If the imam that would be in charge and his surrounding followers would willingly repudiate the Islamic terrorism and the groups that support it -- it would be different.

This is why the Catholic church was not banned, harassed, picketed or otherwise generally ostracized after McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building. Even if he had done that in the name of the Catholic church -- the church would have surely said he was wrong.

That is why most evangelical churches survive. If an abortion doctor is killed or a clinic bombed, you see most of the local parishioners say that was the wrong way to do things.

For that matter, most other Christian groups may not have repudiated Koresh after Waco but they didn't encourage him.

Did you see the Muslims dancing in the street after 9/11? Where does that fit in a civilized society?

The day the imams collectively start saying that terrorism is wrong and sharia law is not the law that should be used -- then we can talk.

So it's bigoted to speak against Islam? Really? How many Mosques are there here in the U.S.? Now lets count the number of synagogues or churches there are in mecca or medina. What? None? And if you aren't muslim, you can't even enter those places? Who's are the bigots?

sorry, that last should read:

Who are the bigots?

And the day that the we the nonbelievers have real freedom to criticise the too many evil of uncilvilised islamic people and oppose openly those extremely intolerant islamic bigots without fear will be the day I will be looking forward to.

"As we know, only a fraction of Muslims are radicalized to violence. Most Muslims are peaceful--free to practice their religion unencumbered."

True, but also largely irrelevant. The issue is not Muslim violence. The issue is their pushing sharia on the West. The issue is the jihad and it's goal of reestablishing the caliphate.

It's what the Muslim Brotherhood refers to as the "civilizational jihad," and what they and the Wahabists are doing with their money.

The Muslims aren't stupid. They know that violence against an enemy more powerful than you are only provokes a backlash. No, they'll take the long road of undermining us from within.

The Muslims aren't stupid. They know that violence against an enemy more powerful than you are only provokes a backlash. No, they'll take the long road of undermining us from within.

So very true -- that is why we need to ever vigilant to legal creep. Being politically correct will lead to that creep. We need to make sure that anyone who comes to this country that we maintain these standards and laws. We hold our citizens, immigrants, and non-immigrant visitors to this line.

That being said -- we need to limit the government and what laws are in place. I know of some people that have been given "open container" tickets for a plain soda from a fast food restaurant. I also know one guy that got one for having a dry beer can with pebbles in it behind the seat in his pickup.

Too many laws make everything illegal.

mosque being a symbol of savagery and oppression should be made illegal in the free world.