An Important Message With A High Political Cost

Most of these people are missing the point.  It's about respect for the dead, what's appropriate for a sacred place.  There is no Shinto Shrine at Pearl Harbor.  There are no Nazi memorials at Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen, Birchenau, etc.  There should not be a triumphalist mosque, the latest in a long line of triumphalist mosques, at Ground Zero.  I do not dispute the Constitutionality or the legality of the Ground Zero mosque, but I do dispute its propriety, its appropriateness.  It is not intolerant to not want the mosque there.  There is no freer nation on Earth than the U.S., but some things are wrong, even if they might be legal.

From AEI:

A Message with a Political Cost By Norman J. Ornstein

New York Times Room for Debate

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The New York Times Room for Debate posed the following question: "Plans for an Islamic community center near ground zero continue to roil national politics. Many Republicans have seized on the project as a campaign issue. And some Democrats facing tough re-election fights, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have come out against the siting of the center. President Obama offered a strong defense of the center and religious freedom on Friday but on Saturday said he wasn't specifically endorsing the center's location. Since it's unlikely leading conservatives like Newt Gingrich, who has accused President Obama of "pandering to radical Islam," will let go of this issue, how should President Obama navigate this politically?" AEI's Norman J. Ornstein offered the following response.











The Times article quoted Elliott Maynard, a Republican running against Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat, in West Virginia's Third District, saying "Do you think the Muslims would allow a Jewish temple or Christian church to be built in Mecca?"



The answer, of course is no--but that is a main reason Barack Obama took up this issue, to point out that Americans are not like the Saudis or the leaders of other Arab countries that are intolerant of and even actively hostile to, other religions.



If you follow Maynard's point to its logical end, he is proudly proclaiming that we should be just like the Saudis. Obama was trying to underscore a different message, about American freedom and the freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution, and deliver that message to a range of audiences, including Muslims and non-Muslims abroad and at home. It is a message that a president trying to fight a war on terror at many levels, ought to be sending.



But it is also a message that has a real political cost, one made a bit greater when the president clarified his position in a logical and reasonable way, but one that simply muddled his case.



In an ideal world, this will turn out to be one of those teachable moments presidents sometimes get to refocus this issue on the biggest asset America has over our enemies and adversaries, our freedom.I agree with Obama on this--defending our Constitution and the rights of religions, including Islam, to have places of worship where they desire when it is legal to do so, while leaving open the question of locating a mosque in this most sensitive of places. But that nuanced position made it easier to attack him as both rash and weak, not to mention calculating, at the same time.



There will also be a marginal cost to Democrats up this year, at a time when they do not need any more marginal costs. The main cost is not that Obama has taken a position at odds with two-thirds of Americans; the fact is very few Americans will cast a vote based on this issue.



But Democrats wanted to gin up a bit of momentum this August, crafting and controlling a message that would put their G.O.P. opponents on the defensive. Having an issue like this emerge takes them off message. It is more an annoyance than a serious burden, but unwelcome by candidates in any case.



Nonetheless, a president has larger issues to deal with, and in this case, despite the charges that he was politicizing the issue, the truth is he was acting outside of, and likely against, his own political interest.



In an ideal world, this will turn out to be one of those teachable moments presidents sometimes get to refocus this issue on the biggest asset America has over our enemies and adversaries, our freedom. Of course, in light of the logic expressed by Maynard and the demagoguery comparing Muslims (not just the radicals) to Nazis, we will probably fall somewhat short of that ideal.



Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.