Liberal bloggers today reacted to Washington Post columnist Eugene
Robinson's explanations that the building would not strictly be a house
of worship, but a community center with a prayer room. AMERICAblog's Gaius Publius
noted Robinson's recent appearance on Countdown with Keith Olbermann in
which he said, Publius paraphrases, "It's not a mosque, it's a
community center with a Prayer Room." Added Publius: "If Park51 is a
Mosque, then the Intel office in Cairo is a Mosque, and the Motorola
office, and the Audi office. They all have 'prayer rooms' so that devout
Muslims can ... pray. It's what Muslims do, several times a day. They
usually look like offices. They're usually labeled 'Prayer Room.' Every
Western company in a Muslim country has a Prayer Room. Are all of these
offices really Mosques?"
Balloon Juice's John Cole also
linked to Robinson's column and wrote, "As a commenter pithily noted the
other day, calling this a mosque is like calling a casino in Las Vegas a
cathedral because it has a wedding chapel."
On conservative hub Hot Air, blogger (aptly named for the topic) Allahpundit reacted to President Obama's
assertion that he has "no regrets" for his comments on the mosque: "How
else could he respond? 'Why yes, in light of the catastrophic polling
on this issue for my party, I should have avoided even the lame,
equivocating statement I gave initially'? His disapproval rating has
been creeping up in Gallup ever since he weighed in, rising from 48
percent last week to a siren-worthy 52 percent today. Of course, he
regrets it. But now he’s stuck with it, so here’s his -- very --
perfunctory show of resoluteness in the face of self-generated
adversity."
