The other day at NYU, Noah Feldman said that the debate on the Islamic Center in lower Manhattan went on in “fairly peripheral” places till “significant” figures, Obama and Bloomberg, picked it up. Feldman is wrong on the facts about the mosque fight.
This was already a major national story before Obama weighed in on Aug. 13. I found a timeline of what happened, on Salon, by Justin Elliott, and it shows that the New York Post made the mosque a story in May 2010.
Within a month, Rudy Giuliani had called the mosque a “desecration.” Within another month, Sarah Palin had tweeted her famous “peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate” tweet. Peter King and Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty followed suit — with political reporters and television news programs dutifully covering “both sides” of the controversy.
All of that is pre-Obama. Bloomberg did not come out strongly on the mosque till August 3. Are these really insignificant figures? What does Feldman’s narrative suggest about his Richter scale for who counts in the world?
I sent Elliott a note about the post. He wondered if Feldman was not also wrong in suggesting that the case had become politicized in a partisan way. I’m not sure about what Feldman said here (I don’t have time to review the transcript), but Elliott points out that Islamophobia gained support across the political board:
I’d have to see the specifics of what he said, but here’s the thing: Democrats and Republicans were largely united in opposition to the project. There are a few exceptions like Nadler and, notably, Obama. But look at Harry Reid, the entire rest of the NY delegation, and some of the Dems in the heart of the country who were the focus of mosque-based ad campaigns. Most came out either in opposition or as agnostic.
