Support for the Muslim Community Center demonstrates why Obama is a PRAGMATIST...

[Writer]

... and not a TRIANGULATOR.

Sometimes he will see an ideologically salient position as being the correct position, and for this reason he voiced his support for the community center tonight. Not all the time - but this time.

A triangulator would attempt to broker a compromise between two or more parties and attempt to find a common ground for what to do with the center. That is not what happened tonight. Obama deductively assessed all possible options, chose the option that he felt was best, which happened to fall within the classical liberal paradigm - religious freedom.

I think we will see many more decisions like this - those that fall too far away from our ideological presumptions, and those that fall closer. However, he will not - and I imagine it would be an insult to him for us to suggest this - become an ideological warrior in the tradition of Culture War politics.

As he said in 2007 - when many of us weren't paying attention - "There's no doubt that we represent the kind of change Senator Clinton can't deliver on. And part of it's generational. Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."

And that is what he is indeed doing - eschewing these long moralistic battles to simply get things done.

[jefferson_dem]

1. This statement was deeply principled.

Sometimes you have to do what's right - politics be damned. I think this president picks his battles wisely.

[SKKY]

2. I generally agree with you...

...but I wish he would be quicker in getting things done. Other than that, I generally have no complaints with President Obama.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Yes; opportunistic, too

Strange word to invoke when polling shows 70% opposition to the mosque, but the statement which comes in the face of such domestic opposition is a huge win globally for him, and it will resonate at that level long after most of those 70% have moved on to another grievance, real or imagined.

[Better Today]

4. FINALLY an OP that doesn't use the word "mosque" and used the correct word

Community Center! Kick and hearty Rec! We complain right, left, and sideways about the misconceptions, misconstructions, and propagandizing hype RWingers use to twist issues, using their terms much of the time. That in my opinion is entirely stupid on our part. We should never have seen the word "mosque" on DU in relation to this issue unless it was in a Wingnut quote.

Good on you! If only the rest of DU was so seduced by RW terminology.