look, americans have what we call a principle policy gap. you go out and do a survey, 90% of americans will tell you, i agree and support, for example, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. but ask them if a communist atheist should be able to hold a rally on their street corner and they ll say no. so stharz there s a gap between the principle and the policy. so this is why we need to recognize that being americans, the thing that makes america so unique and interesting and such a great project in world history is that we meet vulnerability not with this kind of terrorized anxiety, but instead by actually opening ourselves up, by saying, our government, our nation is strong enough to manage dissent. we are big enough and bold enough to allow our citizens to freely assemble, to worship as they see fit, and heck, i don t know, to even zone locally. right!
and accurately, as a very extreme candidate, was a lack of appreciation for the separation of church and state. and he s now he now has put himself in this box, hasn t he? yeah. i mean, it s sort of, what s most disconcerting for democrats is you don t really get much more of a fat down the middle pitch than defending the first amendment. it s the first amendment. everybody loves the first amendment. and if democrats can t stand up for something that is a fundamental constitutional value, i think that says a lot about where the democrats are as a party in terms of political courage. i mean, americans aren t going to side with a weak party that doesn t stand up for principle, especially when the principle is so glaringly obvious. yeah. and the problem here, right, is that the polling is, the polling is a little confusing, right? because the polling shows that people have these two, sort of, conflicting views. they support the first amendment, but there s a plur plurality of vote t
respect to this community center in downtown manhattan. this story elevated again to a national issue on friday night when president obama appeared to endorse the project at the white house. you know when one of these moments of national madness when the president is able to make news by affirming his support for the first amendment. mr. obama then appeared to walk back walk that back the next day, which only served to further fan the flames of this invented controversy. we re going to talk a little bit about the actual arguments here, such as they exist, but before we even get into the substance, i want everyone watching this program just to take a deep breath and really think about what this is going to look like four years from now or five years from now or 20 years from now. which side of this debate will come out looking good when history renders its judgment? you don t want to be on the side of freedom fries. joining us now is princeton university professor, columnist for the n
don t believe me, look at what happened when president obama nominated petraeus to his current post as top nato commander in afghanistan. you ll recall, obama had to call on petraeus services an general mcchrystal talked smack about his civilian superiors and got himself canned. but when obama tapped petraeus to step in for the dismissed mcchrystal, it took the u.s. senate all of seven days to confirm petraeus nomination by a vote of 99-0. here s what they had to say about him. you re not allowed to assume confirmation, by the way, but i am allowed to assume confirmation. i m not sure if frank sinatra, elvis presley, or hank aaron would get those type of accolades. just as he did with president bush in iraq, general petraeus is using that scalp tal to
an enormous tragedy. 15 million people in pakistan are suffering. and one thing that we could do as americans is to say, okay, rather than being exclusionary, rather than fighting over a piece of ground that as sacred and hallowed it might be in our national understanding, instead we reach out to the millions of muslims that are currently suffering through no fault of their own as a result of this horrifying natural disaster during a high holy moment. what that might say about us as americans instead of having this fight over this parcel of land. princeton university professor and colleague of mine at the nation, msnbc contributor melissa harris-lacewell, thanks so much for your time tonight. it s such a pleasure. always, chris. thanks. in this debate, conservatives find themselves wedged between newt gingrich who said, we shouldn t build a mosque here until there are churches in saudi arabia and their beloved first amendment which protects religion, no matter what. paradox. fr