Monday, August 16, 2010

NY Mag: Harry Reid Agrees With Sarah Palin on Mosque

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Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who is in the fight of his political life in Nevada, has adopted Sarah Palin's position on the Ground Zero Mosque, becoming the highest-profile Democrat to call for mosque's planners to move it to some location further away from ground zero:
"The First Amendment protects freedom of religion," Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, wrote in an e-mail today after Reid's Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, called on him to take a position. "Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else." Reid's office did not elaborate on why Reid feels this way, or on how large the mosque-free (or, Islamic-community-center-free) zone surrounding ground zero should be.

Though Reid was more explicit, it's interesting to note that he doesn't necessarily break with President Obama with this statement — like Reid, Obama also supports the right for the Corboda Initiative to build an Islamic community center two blocks from ground zero, but he refuses to say whether he supports the "wisdom" of the project. And, in fact, Reid is taking the same position as Sarah Palin (as well as a majority of Americans, who oppose the mosque while admitting its legality).
- JP

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