TPM Reader DE says just about all you need to know about the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy:
I can't help but think that this whole mosque controversy is explicable in a lot simpler political terms than the explanations we have been seeing from pundits and commentators, i.e., that Republicans are promoting a clash of civilizations, shifting away from George W. Bush's position on Islam, etc.
Republicans ALWAYS run on symbolic issues. Their substantive positions are not popular. People don't like tax cuts for the rich, they don't like endless military commitments, they don't like corporatism, they don't like lax regulations, etc. So Republicans always pick some symbolic, unimportant issue and make it sound like it's the most important thing in the world....
What ticks me off about this is they do this every election cycle. They never want to talk about substance, and they get their way-- every election cycle we talk about whatever they want to talk about. Our political system fiddles while America burns, and it's because the Republican message machine dictates the conversation.
Republicans not only do this, they know they do this, and they deliberately seek out issues to do it with, like the border, for example, when gay rights starts fading as a successful wedge from them:
King, the Long Island congressman, said that in terms of social issues, the raging controversy over the Arizona border laws is providing more than enough ammunition for Republicans in key districts.
"The Arizona immigration law is there, there’s no reason to be raising an issue of gay rights" as a wedge, he said.
If the mosque issue resolves itself quickly, the Republicans will just seek out a similar hot non-issue. Or maybe they'll just keep hitting at it just the same no matter what, because it provokes hot emotions that override the ideals Americans normally say they believe in.
Of course, when their substituting of a divisive symbolic (but irrelevant) issue wins them power once again, they act as if they've earned a mandate from the people for their unpopular and generally disastrous policies: tax cuts for the rich, endless military commitments, corporatism, and lax regulations, etc. If it works this time, they'll add privatizing Social Security and undoing health care reform to the list of what they've gained "the political capital" to do.
Bait and switch, in a shell game the American people can't win if they let themselves be distracted from their true economic interests by the shiny baubles the Republicans so love to dangle in front of them.