GOP leaders and Senate candidates continue to think that they have a winning issue with the so-called Ground-Zero mosque. Ladies and Gentleman let us hope that they continue to think that. The longer this goes on, the longer the issue is going to split the right, not the left.
There are few examples of Democrats coming out against this thing, and no progressive leaders. There may be some timidity to take a position from many democrats, but those who do state their opinion are standing united in defense of religious freedom. However, the GOP is not. Join me after the flip for all the Republicans that are siding with progressives.
The cracks in the GOPs attack on religious freedom is coming from all over. There are at least 2 former Bush Advisors that have broken ranks and are defending the rights of Muslims: Marc McKinnon and Michael Gerson.
Liar, and right-wing fear-monger extraordinaire, Glenn Beck is even stepping away from this. I guess he realizes that once they right-wing is done coming after the Muslims, it could be the Mormons that are next. Here's two links where his fans are complaining about him "defending" the Mosque. (hereand here)
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's right-wing tool, has taken a stance in defense of religious freedom. Claiming he doesn't care if he gets "thrown out" for defending the Mosque. (this may sound courageous ,but it's not. He was already thrown out when he became a strong critique of the Iraq war under Bush)
Even a couple hosts on Faux news stepped off the reservation and defended the Mosque. Think progress has the video.
There are even examples of some small time bloggersfinding themselves on the sides of those evil libruls.
The longer this issue continues, the more cracks we're going to see. This is a case of religious conservatives breaking from libertarians. It's also a case of splitting responsible neo-cons from those who just want to demagogue this into a campaign(i.e. Newt Gingrich)
A bonus issue is that even though the majority of independents might agree with republicans in this case, it's not a salient issue. It's still the economy, stupid. The longer republicans act like this is the end of the world, the more their nuttiness is going to turn people off. Meanwhile, democrats are going to be doing real things like job bills and clean energy.
Also the longer it goes on, the more the truth will come out: it's not a mosque, and it's not at ground zero, and it's not some terrorist organization.
Bottom line, it may not feel like it now, but the longer this issue continues, the better it's going to be for the Democrats.