OK, thanks much; I still don't really agree with that view of his intent, but can certainly understand it. We expect that sort of thing from our pols; probably the biggest reason I'm more sympathetic is because I've spent most of my life watching Dems say heavily nuanced things that get perverted into caricatures by their opponents sound bites and the media/public love of Short Attention Span Theater. The same thing happened to Kerry when he tried to explain why he supported the right to abortion while abhorring it personally; it was a nuanced position that most people seemed to find easier to take as noncommital and indecisive when it was neither. Same thing with "I actually voted for the bill before I voted against it: " While the flip flop charge was frequently accurate with Kerry, the most famous example wasn't much of a flip flop. Unfortunately, the well known phrase is a lot shorter and easier to remember than his explanation that he voted for a bill to fund the troops, then watched it stripped of much of the funding for the actual SOLDIERS that was then replaced with contractor kickbacks he naturally voted against. They changed the bill and thus changed his vote, but it's hard to cover all that thoroughly in thirty seconds.

Thing is though, Obama never promised anyone his support for (or opposition to) the mosque and, as Tash notes, was quite clear in his first statement that this plan was (understandably) generating a lot of undesirable anger and grief. He made clear that as long as he's President no one will stop the mosque from being built, while also making clear that anyone with two brain cells to rub together should've expected all the controversy and outrage. The tone was more favorable in the first statement, but if (and we honestly can't KNOW) he did intend his audience to read in things he didn't say, well, politicians would probably do that less if people weren't so often eager to do so. I don't think, have never thought, that's the case though: I think he rightly recognized that while he had an obligation to speak to the law "as a citizen, and as President" because he happens to be BOTH he doesn't have the luxury of taking a position on the mosque itself. The biggest "change" to the extent there was one, in the second statement is that he explicitly said what he strongly indicated in the first: He shouldn't comment on the mosque itself, and he won't. The only way to make the second statement a reversal, back track, or whatever, is to read something into the first that was never there, and the best and easiest way to avoid hearing something he didn't say is to listen to what he DID say.

Not, once again, that this is a widely possessed strength in America; one of the things that frustrated me throughout the Bush administration was that he would announce new policies, detail each step of how he was going to screw the American people, but they would HEAR it as something beneficial because they so chose. He as much as said his tax cuts would give the working class a one time refund check but give the wealthiest ten years worth of tax reduction, but the public HEARD "you all get an annual windfall" anyway. There's not much you can do to help people like that. Watching people willfully misunderstand the current President isn't much more fun than it was with the last one.

I continue to contend the real problem here is that many on the right want the President to come out and condemn the proposed mosque in the harshest terms, while many on the left want him to praise and laud it in the most glowing ones. He won't do either because he has no business doing either, so they're both pissed at him for serving a broader interest than their own personal niche (and incidentally affirming the spirit as well as the letter of the First Amendment. ) I don't really think think the fault there lies with Obama though. If we're really being honest with ourselves, I think that's what most of us want, a President who won't take federal action to shut down mosques next to the WTC, or church groups carrying signs that say, "God hates fags" or synagogues branding all Palestinians as violent thugs, however much he may detest each of those actions. Yes, his refusal to embrace or condemn any one groups agenda while still affirming their right to pursue it will still enrage a lot of people but, thankfully, still a percentage of the populace far too small to dictate policy.