Friday: 'Let me be clear: As a citizen and as President I believe that Muslims have the same right ... to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in Lower Manhattan' , in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.’

<LI>Saturday: 'I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1303463/Obama-backtracks-Ground-Zero-mosque.html#ixzz0wq5N9bgW

-----

More and more I think his getting into Columbia and Harvard was a simple case of Affirmative Action. The guy is clueless. The last guy in office has some sort of illness and couldn't speak normally, whereas Obama just isn't too bright.

That's a very long and spinfull bow you draw there.

First, he makes a comment based on law and constitutional rights, and on constitutional spirit.

Then he declines to comment on the "wisdom" of the decision....(albeit implying that he does not agree that it would be a wise decision.)

Wisdom vs legal and constituional rights. Apples and oranges, Neither stance infers lack of brains, both stances do not contradict each other......furthermore, he is demonstrating that he will uphold the law and the constition regardless of personal feelings. An admirable stance.

?????

Actually, it's not a long bow you draw.....it's not even spin.....it's simply ridiculous to try to connect the two statements to form a conclusion that he entered Columbia and Harvard based on the colour of his skin.

I see some people are coming down in favor of the mosque near ground zero.

_______________________________________________________

Hamas nod for Ground Zero mosque - Terror group's leader: 'Have to build it'

By S.A. MILLER in Washington and TOM TOPOUSIS in New York

Last Updated: 12:03 PM, August 16, 2010

Posted: 1:49 AM, August 16, 2010

A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero -- insisting Muslims "have to build" it there.

"We have to build everywhere," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization's chief on the Gaza Strip. "In every area we have, [as] Muslim, we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer," he said on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC.

"We have to build the mosque, as you are allowed to build the church and Israelis are building their holy places."

Hamas, he added, "is representing the vast majority of the Arabic and Islamic world -- especially the Islamic side."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who so far has not taken a position on the mosque, dismissed the endorsement. "Hamas is a terrorist organization, and their views don't deserve any weight on anything," his spokesman said.

Zahar said Muslims around the world, including those who live in this country, are united in a common cause. "First of all, we have to address that we are different as people, as a nation, totally different," he said. "We already are living under the tradition of Islam.

"Islam is controlling every source of our life as regard to marriage, divorce, our commercial relationships," Zahar said. "Even the Islamic people or the Muslims in your country, they are living now in the tradition of Islam. They are fasting; they are praying."

Politicians who previously had lots to say on the matter were not nearly as eager to discuss the latest development.

Despite his outspoken opposition to the building of a mosque so close to Ground Zero, Rep. Peter King (R-LI) said only, "I don't respond to Hamas."

Mayor Bloomberg, a strong supporter of the plan, declined comment through a spokesman.

Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed mosque, and two other leaders of the plan who previously had commented extensively, were silent yesterday.

They did not respond to The Post's phone calls or e-mails about the Hamas endorsement.

Hamas first came up in the mosque debate earlier this summer when Abdul Rauf refused to describe the group as a terrorist organization -- despite the State Department listing that identifies it as such.

Tom Brown, a chief opponent of the mosque, said: "This is what we've been saying . . . Imam Rauf is a radical Muslim who will not call Hamas a terror group."

A retired firefighter who was a first responder on 9/11, Brown lost 100 of his FDNY friends at the Twin Towers. "How much evidence do we need that this guy is a radical Muslim?" he asked. "If Rauf really were a bridge builder and an interfaith guy and all the things he professes to be, he wouldn't be doing this to people."

Abdul Rauf raised eyebrows last week when he departed on a State Department-sponsored goodwill mission to the Middle East, despite concerns that the trip may be helping him with the mosque's $100 million fund-raising goal.

The Obama administration insisted the trip, reportedly with stops in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, was strictly to improve understanding about Muslim communities in the United States.

But a London-based Arabic-language newspaper that interviewed Abdul Rauf reported that he said he would also collect money from Muslim and Arab nations around the world -- raising the possibility that the American government is helping him build contacts in oil-rich states.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/hamas_nod_for_gz_mosque_cSohH9eha8sNZMTDz0VVPI#ixzz0wr9RZZTp

Everybody knows exactly what Obama meant when he came out in favor of the Mosque and now he is trying to have it both ways and deny his previous statement. He really does seem to have no clue about politics outside of his politically correct agenda. Well, at least he makes Jimmy Carter not look so bad in comparison.

That's a very long and spinfull bow you draw there.

First, he makes a comment based on law and constitutional rights, and on constitutional spirit.

Then he declines to comment on the "wisdom" of the decision....(albeit implying that he does not agree that it would be a wise decision.)

Wisdom vs legal and constituional rights. Apples and oranges, Neither stance infers lack of brains, both stances do not contradict each other......furthermore, he is demonstrating that he will uphold the law and the constition regardless of personal feelings. An admirable stance.

?????

Actually, it's not a long bow you draw.....it's not even spin.....it's simply ridiculous to try to connect the two statements to form a conclusion that he entered Columbia and Harvard based on the colour of his skin.

Any politician with half a brain would know better to say what Obama said. Maybe he was a brilliant kid when he got accepted to those schools and since he started living at the White House he has been infected with "Village Idiot Disease". I'm inclined to believe that he was never all that smart in the first place. Which brings into question exactly how he was able to get admitted to two of the country's top universities. GWB got into Yale because his father was a graduate. Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?

I don't know if this was published in the US but Mayor Bloomberg did a piece in the Times (of London) which I've stolen from their website and appended below.

To block this mosque would betray our values

Michael Bloomberg

Last updated August 7 2010 12:01AM

New York is split by the prospect of a mosque being built just two blocks away from Ground Zero. The City’s mayor, in a speech reprinted below argues that we dishonour the dead of 9/11 if we deny Muslims the right to worship

We have come here to Governors Island to stand where the earliest settlers first set foot in New Amsterdam, and where the seeds of religious tolerance were first planted. We’ve come here to see the inspiring symbol of liberty that has greeted millions of immigrants in the harbour, and we come here to state as strongly as ever: this is the freest city in the world. That’s what makes New York special and different and strong.

Our doors are open to everyone — everyone with a dream and a willingness to work hard and play by the rules. New York City was built by immigrants, and it is sustained by immigrants — by people from more than a hundred different countries speaking more than 200 different languages and professing every faith. And whether your parents were born here, or you came yesterday, you are a New Yorker.

We may not always agree with every one of our neighbours. That’s life, and it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognise that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbours in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11.

On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn’t want us to enjoy the freedom to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams and to live our own lives.

Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that, even here in a city that is rooted in Dutch tolerance, was hard-won over many years. In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in Lower Manhattan petitioned Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor, for the right to build a synagogue — and they were turned down.

In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defence of the right of Quakers and others to freely practise their religion. It was perhaps the first formal, political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies — and the organiser was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practising their religion — and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s — St Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site and one block south of the proposed mosque and community centre.

Earlier this week, New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission voted unanimously not to extend landmark status to the building where the mosque and community centre are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building. The simple fact is that the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship.

The Government has no right whatsoever to deny that right — and if it tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the US Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community centre, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question — should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favour one over another.

The World Trade Center site will for ever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves — and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans — if we said “no” to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

Freedom of religion has nothing to do with it. Provocation does. Hamas is actively pushing for the building of the Al- Qaeda Mosque.

Everybody knows exactly what Obama meant when he came out in favor of the Mosque and now he is trying to have it both ways and deny his previous statement. He really does seem to have no clue about politics outside of his politically correct agenda. Well, at least he makes Jimmy Carter not look so bad in comparison.

this is something i did not think i would see in my life time and he has done it in 18 mo's. he is setting a new standard for clueless.

That's a very long and spinfull bow you draw there.

First, he makes a comment based on law and constitutional rights, and on constitutional spirit.

Then he declines to comment on the "wisdom" of the decision....(albeit implying that he does not agree that it would be a wise decision.)

Wisdom vs legal and constituional rights. Apples and oranges, Neither stance infers lack of brains, both stances do not contradict each other......furthermore, he is demonstrating that he will uphold the law and the constition regardless of personal feelings. An admirable stance.

?????

Actually, it's not a long bow you draw.....it's not even spin.....it's simply ridiculous to try to connect the two statements to form a conclusion that he entered Columbia and Harvard based on the colour of his skin.

Any politician with half a brain would know better to say what Obama said. Maybe he was a brilliant kid when he got accepted to those schools and since he started living at the White House he has been infected with "Village Idiot Disease". I'm inclined to believe that he was never all that smart in the first place. Which brings into question exactly how he was able to get admitted to two of the country's top universities. GWB got into Yale because his father was a graduate. Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?

Perhaps somebody that seems to think Obama is so brilliant could provide us with his college transcript from Occidental College, which was prior to his admittance into both Columbia and Harvard.

While they are at it, I would also like to see his transcripts from Columbia and Harvard as well.

Anybody????

That's a very long and spinfull bow you draw there.

First, he makes a comment based on law and constitutional rights, and on constitutional spirit.

Then he declines to comment on the "wisdom" of the decision....(albeit implying that he does not agree that it would be a wise decision.)

Wisdom vs legal and constituional rights. Apples and oranges, Neither stance infers lack of brains, both stances do not contradict each other......furthermore, he is demonstrating that he will uphold the law and the constition regardless of personal feelings. An admirable stance.

?????

Actually, it's not a long bow you draw.....it's not even spin.....it's simply ridiculous to try to connect the two statements to form a conclusion that he entered Columbia and Harvard based on the colour of his skin.

Any politician with half a brain would know better to say what Obama said. Maybe he was a brilliant kid when he got accepted to those schools and since he started living at the White House he has been infected with "Village Idiot Disease". I'm inclined to believe that he was never all that smart in the first place. Which brings into question exactly how he was able to get admitted to two of the country's top universities. GWB got into Yale because his father was a graduate. Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?

Your title, "BO backtracks...", and your conclusion regarding his intelligence, clearly outline where you are coming from, yet the comments BO made that you quoted as an indication/proof of your points do not in any way support your stance,

A point of law and of "The American Way", which Bloomberg has apparently made also, and a statement declining to comment on "someone's wisdom".

How is one a backtrack from the other?

How does either reflect poor political nouse?

Lets just assume for the sake of this argument that I am not barracking for Obama, but simply asking the questions posed above. Lets take Obama's name and the colour of his skin out of it. Lets say Senator X said the 2 statements that you quoted in the OP.

You say Senator X is not bright based on those statements. You say that Senator X has less than half a brain for making the statements.

Bloomberg has said much the same as one of them. Most politicians will, to maintain diplomacy, decline to comment on the wisdom of certain decisions a third party has made.

Treat me like the fool that you think I am....explain it in simple terms with no assumed knowledge....if you can.

I don't know if this was published in the US but Mayor Bloomberg did a piece in the Times (of London) which I've stolen from their website and appended below.

To block this mosque would betray our values

Michael Bloomberg

Last updated August 7 2010 12:01AM

New York is split by the prospect of a mosque being built just two blocks away from Ground Zero. The City's mayor, in a speech reprinted below argues that we dishonour the dead of 9/11 if we deny Muslims the right to worship

What's he rambling on about now? This has nothing to do with the right to worship. Bloomberg might as well say the mosque should be allowed because owning slaves or denying women the right to vote is wrong. If they go through with this. I'd love to see the KKK build a 13-storey office down the street from the NAACP's office. It's their right afterall!

That's a very long and spinfull bow you draw there.

First, he makes a comment based on law and constitutional rights, and on constitutional spirit.

Then he declines to comment on the "wisdom" of the decision....(albeit implying that he does not agree that it would be a wise decision.)

Wisdom vs legal and constituional rights. Apples and oranges, Neither stance infers lack of brains, both stances do not contradict each other......furthermore, he is demonstrating that he will uphold the law and the constition regardless of personal feelings. An admirable stance.

?????

Actually, it's not a long bow you draw.....it's not even spin.....it's simply ridiculous to try to connect the two statements to form a conclusion that he entered Columbia and Harvard based on the colour of his skin.

Any politician with half a brain would know better to say what Obama said. Maybe he was a brilliant kid when he got accepted to those schools and since he started living at the White House he has been infected with "Village Idiot Disease". I'm inclined to believe that he was never all that smart in the first place. Which brings into question exactly how he was able to get admitted to two of the country's top universities. GWB got into Yale because his father was a graduate. Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?

Perhaps somebody that seems to think Obama is so brilliant could provide us with his college transcript from Occidental College, which was prior to his admittance into both Columbia and Harvard.

While they are at it, I would also like to see his transcripts from Columbia and Harvard as well.

Anybody????

You're missing my point completely, as usual. My point is, how are the quoted statements in the OP an indication of Obama's lack of brains, and how are they evidence of backtracking?

I don't know if this was published in the US but Mayor Bloomberg did a piece in the Times (of London) which I've stolen from their website and appended below.

To block this mosque would betray our values

Michael Bloomberg

Last updated August 7 2010 12:01AM

New York is split by the prospect of a mosque being built just two blocks away from Ground Zero. The City's mayor, in a speech reprinted below argues that we dishonour the dead of 9/11 if we deny Muslims the right to worship

What's he rambling on about now? This has nothing to do with the right to worship. Bloomberg might as well say the mosque should be allowed because owning slaves or denying women the right to vote is wrong. If they go through with this. I'd love to see the KKK build a 13-storey office down the street from the NAACP's office. It's their right afterall!

That's a very long and spinfull bow you draw there.

First, he makes a comment based on law and constitutional rights, and on constitutional spirit.

Then he declines to comment on the "wisdom" of the decision....(albeit implying that he does not agree that it would be a wise decision.)

Wisdom vs legal and constituional rights. Apples and oranges, Neither stance infers lack of brains, both stances do not contradict each other......furthermore, he is demonstrating that he will uphold the law and the constition regardless of personal feelings. An admirable stance.

?????

Actually, it's not a long bow you draw.....it's not even spin.....it's simply ridiculous to try to connect the two statements to form a conclusion that he entered Columbia and Harvard based on the colour of his skin.

Any politician with half a brain would know better to say what Obama said. Maybe he was a brilliant kid when he got accepted to those schools and since he started living at the White House he has been infected with "Village Idiot Disease". I'm inclined to believe that he was never all that smart in the first place. Which brings into question exactly how he was able to get admitted to two of the country's top universities. GWB got into Yale because his father was a graduate. Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?

Your title, "BO backtracks...", and your conclusion regarding his intelligence, clearly outline where you are coming from, yet the comments BO made that you quoted as an indication/proof of your points do not in any way support your stance,

A point of law and of "The American Way", which Bloomberg has apparently made also, and a statement declining to comment on "someone's wisdom".

How is one a backtrack from the other?

How does either reflect poor political nouse?

Lets just assume for the sake of this argument that I am not barracking for Obama, but simply asking the questions posed above. Lets take Obama's name and the colour of his skin out of it. Lets say Senator X said the 2 statements that you quoted in the OP.

You say Senator X is not bright based on those statements. You say that Senator X has less than half a brain for making the statements.

Bloomberg has said much the same as one of them. Most politicians will, to maintain diplomacy, decline to comment on the wisdom of certain decisions a third party has made.

Treat me like the fool that you think I am....explain it in simple terms with no assumed knowledge....if you can.

1) "BO backtracks" is the title of the Daily Mail article itself, not one of my own making.

2) A white Senator who had served only 100 days in office before running for president wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hel_l of getting elected due to lack of experience. In fact, he wouldn't have the cajones to even bother running in the first place.

3) Bloomberg is a billionaire businessman first. politician second. I believe being Mayor is his first politicial office so he does't always think like a politician. Besides, two wrongs don't make a right.

Any politician with half a brain would know better to say what Obama said. Maybe he was a brilliant kid when he got accepted to those schools and since he started living at the White House he has been infected with "Village Idiot Disease". I'm inclined to believe that he was never all that smart in the first place. Which brings into question exactly how he was able to get admitted to two of the country's top universities. GWB got into Yale because his father was a graduate. Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?

Perhaps somebody that seems to think Obama is so brilliant could provide us with his college transcript from Occidental College, which was prior to his admittance into both Columbia and Harvard.

While they are at it, I would also like to see his transcripts from Columbia and Harvard as well.

Anybody????

You're missing my point completely, as usual. My point is, how are the quoted statements in the OP an indication of Obama's lack of brains, and how are they evidence of backtracking?

...and you are missing my point, as usual.

You made this statement, quoted from your quoted post, "Just exactly what did Obama, an poor kid from Hawaii, bring to the table to get into Columbia?"

I am merely asking you or anybody else the same question....

Exactly what did Obama bring to the table to get into Columbia?

He refuses to release his school records from Occidental, Columbia or Harvard. If his admission wasn't minority related, then why was he admitted?

^

White Man's Guilt. That and the Chicago politcal machine got B. Hussien Obama where he is today...

Apparently, you've never heard the expression, "Quit while you are ahead". Then again, you are never ahead.

And here I thought this was going to be about the mosque at ground zero. So I was going to post this bit of relevant info but it seems its not relevant after all

Inside Edition caught up with Fakih backstage as she rehearsed for the Miss Universe Pageant in Las Vegas on Monday.

Fakih says she backs President Obama regarding freedom of religion, but says that there should be sensitivity as to where the NYC mosque is built, and that she does not think it is appropriate to be built near Ground Zero.

Rima Fakih: "I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on Constitutional rights of freedom of religion. I also agree that it shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion."

Oh and by the by, she is the first Muslim Miss USA

But, never mind, coz clearly it has no relevance to this thread at all. guess I will go search out one where it does

Oh and by the by, she is the first Muslim Miss USA

She is against building the Al Queda mosque near Ground Zero. That and the hot picture are relevant enough for me.

And here I thought this was going to be about the mosque at ground zero. So I was going to post this bit of relevant info but it seems its not relevant after all

Pictures of smoling hot women are always relevant.

A bit on the bony side. Almost repulsive.....but not quite; the overall beauty goes some way to compensate.

Isn't the proposed site almost two blocks away from Ground Zero? To a New Yorker that's a long way.

Apart from that, just how far away is far enough?

The landing gear from the hijacked plane hit he building on the site.

Two blocks away is a long walk, how far away would you three supporters of terror accept it?

Two blocks away is a long walk, how far away would you three supporters of terror accept it?

You never did say what international law was broken in that other thread. Is that pretty much what we can expect of you? That you make false accusations and run away when asked to back it up? That's pretty lame.

"Supporters of terror" aimed at other forum posters is a bit heavy-handed, bordering on flaming. Please tone down the rhetoric toward other TV members and discuss the issue on its own merits. I know It's Bedlam, but even in Bedlam we try to be nice to each other.

Regards,

Toptuan

For the Moderating Team

Isn't the proposed site almost two blocks away from Ground Zero? To a New Yorker that's a long way.

Apart from that, just how far away is far enough?

The landing gear from the hijacked plane hit he building on the site.

Brilliant reposte, sharp, incisive, to the point, answers the question posed on every level, leaving nobody in any doubt regarding the righteousness of the selected response.

How about that then Toptuan, however it does show being nice isn't worth the paper that it isn't written on

Two blocks away is a long walk, how far away would you three supporters of terror accept it?

You never did say what international law was broken in that other thread. Is that pretty much what we can expect of you? That you make false accusations and run away when asked to back it up? That's pretty lame.

Lame? Just go back one page in this thread and remind yourself just exactly who ignores the facts when they are presented.....and of course, there's that other thread that you still refuse to commit to your original statement.

Crickey Children, it is one thing to attack eack other on each and every thread, but to bring up multiple threads and condense them into one homogenous lump, is well a Bridge Too Far, maybe, possibly, perhaps.