particularly if the genuine article is not at ones disposal. Clinton and Bush could be at least as duplicitous as any other politician, they were just (usually) very good at LOOKING sincere. Still, we're talking about two men proven to have lied to the American publics face for their own purposes, something I don't recall either ever admitting despite airtight evidence. You want integrity, go talk to Carter; he's the last American President I can't prove for a fact lied to the entire nation.

Anyway, Obama was quite clear and precise in his words and intent; the problem is that people on both sides of the issue have filled in the blanks as they wished. Really, no government official should be making any personal statements about the mosque ITSELF, because that ignores the spirit if not the letter of the First Amendment: The moment an elected official weighs in on whether the mosque SHOULD (rather than CAN) be built, it has the effect of either tacit government condemnation or endorsement. His initial comment was explicitly on the Constitutional aspect, to which his personal feelings about the mosque are (or should be) irrelevant. What was his second comment?

"'I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there,' he said the morning after he commented on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. 'I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That’s what our country is about.'"

If Ms. Dowd thinks that's somehow "unclear" or at odds with his initial statement perhaps it's because she more often seems a talking head than a journalist. I'm really sorry that instead of stating the positions of pundits and demagogues from both sides Obama stated the position of the US Constitution, but my sympathy is more with the nation that the partisans claiming to represent what they don't understand. Obamas mistake, to the extent that he made one (and he didn't "create" this story nationally) was not in what he said but in the fact he said anything at all. Though there is a school of thought (likely the one to which Obama subscribes) that says that as the hue and cry around the country rose, maybe someone NEEDED to remind us of what America means, and who better than the President?

Personally, I agree he should've left it alone, though as I've intermittently watched the drama play out I've become increasingly unsure of that. Whether or not he made a statement though, he had no business making one in favor of or against the mosque, and thank God he at least had sense enough to know that even if the pundits (who aren't exactly overflowing with sense) lack or choose to ignore that knowledge. You and I have the luxury of publicly expressing our feelings about the mosque itself because no one will mistake them for official US policy.