Obama panders to Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.
President Barack Obama, speaking last night at the White House’s iftar dinner marking Ramadan, defended plans to build a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero. The nation’s commitment to religious freedom he said, “must be unshakable.”
“I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” he said. As WSJ reporters Devlin Barrett and Jonathan Weisman noted, the project “has generated opposition from a host of prominent Republicans, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Resistance to other mosque-building plans has sprouted around the country, but the symbolism of such a structure in close proximity to Ground Zero has generated a national argument.” It was an argument that Obama had steered clear of – until last night….
Entering the highly charged election-year debate, Obama surely knew that his words would not only make headlines in the U.S. but be heard by Muslims worldwide. The president has made it a point to reach out to the global Muslim community, and the over 100 guests at Friday’s dinner in the State Dining Room included ambassadors and officials from numerous nations where Islam is observed, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.