N.Y. imam blames politics for mosque dispute

Election-year politics are interfering with the plan to build an Islamic center near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Muslim cleric leading the project said in comments published on Monday.

"There is no doubt that the election season has had a major impact upon the nature of the discourse," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper. "The question becomes which discourse will dominate, not only in the short term but in the long term."

. . . The proposed center in lower Manhattan has generated fierce opposition from conservative politicians and people who see the project as an offence to the approximately 2,750 people killed when Islamist militant suicide hijackers from al-Qaida slammed planes into the Twin Towers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38916752/ns/us_news-life/

The N.Y. imam only sees "fierce opposition from conservative politicians and" "many conservative candidates and political figures" and "Republicans running for midterm elections around the United States"?

Like Howard Dean?

Like Harry Reid?

Like many in the N.Y. Democratic congressional delegation?

Like 65+% of the American public?

Rather than dismiss and mis-characterize the opposition to his Ground Zero mosque, maybe the imam should consider the possibility that opposition arises from the fact that body parts of 9/11 victims were found on the site of his project!