And maybe that highlights the fact Obamas deficiencies aren't our only problem. He goes out and asserts the freedom of all Americans to worship as they please (a freedom he's legally obligated to defend) including by building this mosque, but never endorses it, so the right attacks him as soft on terrorism. Then he goes out and explicitly states that he wasn't giving his blessing or stating his personal opinion, only reiterating his responsibility as President, and so he's attacked from the left for being cowardly. In other words, BOTH sides have criticized two paraphrases of the same statement simply because each chose at different times to attach different meanings to those statements, meanings that go far beyond what the statements actually proclaim.

I find it particularly interesting since I don't have time these days to follow every single political speech, but, on the subject of his first statement, just the other day on this board I said pretty much the same thing he did in his second statement. It was really easy for me to understand the statement as he meant it: I just had to read what he SAID, instead of what I THOUGHT he said or WISHED he'd said. There is a school of thought that says he's still trying to keep his private opinion of the mosque to himself--but y'know what? He has the right to do that so long as he continues to uphold the law in his public capacity.

He never should have opened his mouth on the matter; the only thing that could result is exactly what's happened. He wasn't going to magically science the critics or convince the builders that MAYBE a different site would better serve their ecumenical and multicultural goals. But regardless of the wisdom of commenting, the comments he's made--both of them--seem perfectly fine to me.