Obama backtracks over Ground Zero mosque

By Mail Foreign Service
17th August 2010

Friday: 'Let me be clear: As a citizen and as President I believe that Muslims have the same right ... to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in Lower Manhattan'

Saturday: 'I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there'

Hamas: Muslims 'have to build everywhere' so they can pray like Christians and Jews

Barack Obama has backtracked over his support for plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero.
The U.S. President was hit by a furious backlash from victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks after he backed the highly controversial plans in a speech on Friday.

The proposed site for the 13-storey building is close to where almost 3,000 people died nine years ago after Muslim hijackers flew two jet airliners into the World Trade Center. the rest

Obama, the one-term president
The problem for Obama is that he appears to have taken seriously all the “change” stuff he promised during his campaign. And he has been unable to make the transition from candidate to president.

Obama boasts of most 'progressive' political triumphs in decades
"We have been able to deliver the most progressive legislative agenda -- one that helps working families -- not just in one generation, maybe two, maybe three," Obama said.

Obama's approval ratings hit new lows
"The president visited Florida's Gulf Coast over the weekend as part of a vacation with his family, while his comments about the construction of a mosque near ground zero in New York City became a much-debated topic in the news media and on the Internet," Gallup reported.

The Economist: Disappointed, down, despondent
WHY, asks a Democrat leading a training session for fellow activists, doesn’t “Yes we can” work as a slogan any more? “Because we haven’t,” a jaded participant responds. Progressives, as bedrock Democrats like to call themselves, are despondent. The election euphoria of 2008, when their party secured heavy majorities in both chambers of Congress and Barack Obama won the presidency with ease, has deflated so rapidly that analysts are now diagnosing on the left an affliction they ascribed to the Republicans back then: an “enthusiasm gap”.

Obama, the Mosque, and Ground Zero
What Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama have done is to undermine the very cause they say they are trying to defend. By implicitly and explicitly siding with Feisal Abdul Rauf’s effort and trying to turn this matter into a false debate about religious freedom, they are sharpening the divisions in our country in a way that is both unnecessary and harmful.