In which Greenwald and I give Obama unqualified praise
By Thoreau
I echo Greenwald: Obama did the right thing by speaking out in favor of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” He didn’t abuse his powers to try to over-ride any local authorities (which would be both wrong and unnecessary, given that the NYC authorities have approved the mosque) but simply used the bully pulpit to speak out against bigotry. The only criticism that could possibly be raised is that perhaps he should have spoken sooner, but (1) as Greenwald said, when’s the last time a President entered the fray on a hot-button kulturkampf issue to buck popular opinion? and (2) the President cannot and should not weigh in on every hot-button kulturkampf issue, but this festering sore of an issue doesn’t seem to be going away. The “wait and see” test has been passed. Also, the first Friday of Ramadan is a particularly appropriate time to address the Muslim community.
Plus, he’s a black Democrat, with the middle name Hussein, speaking at a Ramadan event, in a country where a non-trivial minority thinks he’s a Muslim sleeper terrorist born overseas. He might as well have written a check to the Palin 2012 campaign, for all of the red meat kabobs that he just handed to the GOP base.
As Obama said, in America religious freedom is how we roll. Unpopular religious groups have been coming here to do their thing for a long, long time. Every Thanksgiving we tell stories about Puritans who came here to escape the persecution of the British Crown so they could live Pure and oppress the natives in their own way. Catholics and Protestants with Irish names co-exist in peace. Amish people ride their buggies unmolested. Unitarians can recycle to their hearts’ content without anybody interrupting to ask whether they are actually a religion. And Tibetan Buddhists who want to escape Chinese persecution reincarnate here without even having to get a license. The result of all of this religious freedom, much to the irritation of (EDIT: some of) our atheists (another group whose rights are religiously…err, staunchly protected by the 1st amendment) is one of the most religious populations in the industrialized world.
So, for the love of Christ, Allah, Brahma, Buddha, Gaia, the AA higher power, Zoroaster, Yahweh, and whoever it is that the Hari Krishnas worship, let them build the mosque. Unpopular religious minorities are as American as the ACLU suing to take down the City Hall Christmas Tree and then suing on behalf of Christians barred from protesting on city property.
Comment by Hugh Akston —
August 14, 2010 @ 2:31 am
Well said. I tend to err on the side of el jefe keeping out of kulture war issues, but you made some fair observations.
Comment by Rojo —
August 14, 2010 @ 6:40 am
I have little good to say about Obama, but I’ll have to go w/ you and Greenwald on this one.
So says this atheist with a Unitarian sister, Southern Baptist father, Hindu mother, and Catholic uncle.
P.S. Hey man, if our religious rights are so staunchly protected, how come we’re the only ones in lower case?
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 14, 2010 @ 8:04 am
whoever it is that the Hari Krishnas worship
It’s “Hare,” and I think the answer is Krishna, strangely enough.
Oh yeah…good post, too. Obama finally surprised me in a good way.
Comment by J sub D —
August 14, 2010 @ 8:35 am
This atheist, who vociferously champions freedom of religion, doesn’t appreciate being tarred with such a wide brush.
See? I can play the offended game as well as anybody.
Comment by Someone Who Doesn't Want to Lose His Job —
August 14, 2010 @ 10:12 am
All praise Bob!
Bob must be stopped!
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 14, 2010 @ 10:37 am
This is really bringing out the crazies.
‘See, I told you he was as secret Muslim. Where’s the birth certificate?’
Seems to be the predominant theme on the boston.com comments.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 14, 2010 @ 12:49 pm
JsubD-
I fixed it.
Comment by Someone Who Doesn't Want to Lose His Job —
August 14, 2010 @ 4:24 pm
This is really bringing out the crazies.
Just because I post two contradictory views on the value of Bob, suddenly I’m crazy?
Comment by Donald Johnson —
August 14, 2010 @ 4:38 pm
It confuses me when Obama does the right thing. But sometimes confusion is good.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector —
August 14, 2010 @ 5:14 pm
He did indulge in one tiny bit of rowback this afternoon, claiming that he hasn’t and won’t address the “wisdom” of locating that center in its current location.
Comment by The Sanity Inspector —
August 14, 2010 @ 5:16 pm
In your list of religions doing their “thing”, you neglected to mention what Islam’s thing is.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 14, 2010 @ 6:49 pm
*dopeslaps Thoreau for the atheist bit*
But yes, a good and surprisingly brave thing done by Obama. Maybe we’ll see another sooner or later.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 14, 2010 @ 9:44 pm
To clarify, the only thing I was trying to say was to acknowledge that some atheists might wish that the population wasn’t quite as religious as I was extolling on how we have this super-religious population. I didn’t mean to imply that they don’t like religious freedom. The great thing about religious freedom is that we can have a super-religious population with avid adherents of very different religions AND atheism in the same country without anybody being sent to a camp.
Comment by dhex —
August 14, 2010 @ 9:57 pm
isn’t it spelled kebabs?
Comment by bad Jim —
August 14, 2010 @ 10:13 pm
If Thomas Paine could say, “My religion is to do good”, then we Unitarians can say we have one, too. (But, since we also claim the deist Paine as one of ours, it’s perhaps unwise to take us entirely seriously.)
Comment by Rojo —
August 14, 2010 @ 11:16 pm
I’m an atheist and I read Thoreau’s statement in exactly the same way as his explanation at comment 13 explained and also exemplify that statement.
I am indeed annoyed that our country is so religious, although I’m not sure that I would attribute that to the first amendment as opposed to the active obfuscation of class as an operative category in American political life.
I’m also an anarchist, but I approvingly quote Marx for saying, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Only that last bit tends to get quoted, but the full quote has much more meaning.
I continue to agree w/ Greenwald in that he has now updated the post in question and commented that the walkback make’s Obama’s position far less courageous than it first seemed.
And thank goodness for that, I was worried I might have to agree with Obama on something. It was the same vertigo I felt when he came out when he came out rhetorically against the coup in Honduras, but then his administration worked assiduously to lend diplomatic support to the golpistas, and all was once again right with the world.
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August 14, 2010 @ 11:32 pm
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Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 15, 2010 @ 8:10 am
I continue to agree w/ Greenwald in that he has now updated the post in question and commented that the walkback make’s Obama’s position far less courageous than it first seemed.
Yep. He couldn’t let us forget that he’s a Democrat, after all.
I’ve been thinking of him as Clinton Redux since the beginning, but shit, it’s like he’s going out of his way to prove me right.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 15, 2010 @ 10:00 am
I can’t believe I have to explain this point to libertarians.
Obama’s statement wasn’t a walkback – it was a repetition of the central point of his statement: that the rights of minorities, the rights of everyone under our constitution to engage in religious activity, don’t depend on whether the president, or anyone else, actually supports the religious activity being questioned.
Any excuse, even tossing out your principles, to bash the guy.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 15, 2010 @ 10:01 am
What would oh-so-much-more-concerned-about-liberty-than-everyone-else types have preferred Obama to say? “I support their right to build the community center, because I personally think it’s a good idea?”
Why do I have to explain this point to you people?
Comment by Thoreau —
August 15, 2010 @ 10:11 am
joe-
I agree that as a statement about rights and how the exercise of a right doesn’t depend on whether others like it, Obama’s point remains undiminished. As a staement about tolerance and values, however, his original point is somewhat diminished.
To wit, as a libertarian I unequivocally support the right of the mosque opponents to gather peaceably and protest it, and if somebody arrested them for it I’d expect the ACLU to spend some of my donations defending the rights of the mosque opponents.
But of the conversation switches from legal rights to values, I call the mosque opponents idiots without any qualification.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 15, 2010 @ 10:30 am
Thoreau,
Once you get into the question of tolerance and values, it inevitably becomes necessary to talk about feelings of opponents and the actual implications, culturally and socially, of constructing the community center.
That’s Bloomberg’s turf, and he’s made the point quite well. There’s a local/federal distinction here, and it dovetails nicely with the rights/tolerance distinction.
Comment by Kolohe —
August 15, 2010 @ 10:42 am
The President’s address next week will cover the fact that, regardless if you are a cat person or a dog person, both puppies and kittens are irresistibly cute.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 15, 2010 @ 10:51 am
Unfortunately, Kolohe, the notion that Muslims have constitutional rights isn’t nearly as widely-held as the notion that puppies and kitties are cute; and yes, it does take a certain amount of political courage to say they do.
Especially if you’re the first black president, named Barack the Islamist Shock Superallah Hussein Obama.
Comment by Kolohe —
August 15, 2010 @ 11:01 am
When Glenn Greenwald, Tom McGuire, and the front page of the Washington Post all agree that the President is backpedaling, there is some ‘there’ there. At the very least, the follow up Saturday was an avoidable own goal that lost the newscycle and dispirited people that wanted to give him some credit and/or benefit of the doubt.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 15, 2010 @ 11:20 am
Oh, please. When three constant Obama critics find an excuse to criticize Obama for something, it’s just reversion to the mean.
Argue the merits, if you feel so strongly. Spare me the appeals to authority.
Spare me the meta- b.s. Lost the news cycle – there are more important things than news cycles.
Uh, yeah, three sources that make their money by being Obama critics really want to give him the benefit of the doubt. They must have been really dispirited by having to go back into their fault-finding comfort zones.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 15, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
I will stick with my upbeat attitude of Friday by saying that the original statement was a fine one that needed no elaboration. John Kerry taught us that nuanced clarifications are strategic missteps even if they are intellectually consistent and defensible. He should have let his eloquent and correct statement stand on its own and draw attacks from the crazies. “Clarifying” will not make the right let up, but it will annoy his base as well as others who would be natural allies on an issue like this.
I mean, who would you rather have opposed to you–the religiously tolerant or idiots who talk about the “end zone dance mosque”?
Comment by J sub D —
August 15, 2010 @ 12:49 pm
I was joshing about the atheist thingee. Yeah we get verbally shit on from time to time (years divisible by four stand out) but it really ain’t enough to get one’s panties in a knot over.
Back on topic, I do have a minor objection to Obama’s statement
which would have been far better as
Comment by Kolohe —
August 15, 2010 @ 1:00 pm
@joe-
Whatever, you want to ‘win’ this one, fine. I don’t care enough to make an affirmative case that when you have the bully pulpit, you go all in or not at all, and Obama half-assed it. I do believe the Profiles in Courage people won’t be calling him as fast as the Nobel people did.
I did not preface my related but tangential thoughts as ‘related, but tangential thoughts’ because I didn’t feel I needed to, and have enough problems with the whole brevity thing, but I see I was mistaken.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 15, 2010 @ 3:20 pm
He should have let his eloquent and correct statement stand on its own and draw attacks from the crazies. “Clarifying” will not make the right let up, but it will annoy his base as well as others who would be natural allies on an issue like this.
This. Thank you.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 16, 2010 @ 10:25 am
Do you realize that you’ve written two comments two comments to me, neither of which addressed in even the most superficial manner my point, and both of which are about rah rah bullshit?
It’s almost as if you’re using this anti-partisan pose to avoid thought.
I’ll say it again: the point about religious freedom being absolute, completely apart from the merits of the religious activity being carried out, is an important point to make, and libertarians are the last people who should be poo-pooing that point or calling it a retreat.
Comment by lunchstealer —
August 17, 2010 @ 2:07 am
This atheist, who vociferously champions freedom of religion, doesn’t appreciate being tarred with such a wide brush.
That’s just because you haven’t been around enough Baptists. Grow up where practicing Southern Baptists make up a full 50% of the population. You may still be able to argue for their religious freedom, but you’ll damn well be irritated.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 18, 2010 @ 11:49 am
I have, lunchstealer, and I’m not irritated by religious freedom.
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