The State Department is finally explaining why it decided to publish on its affiliate website, www.america.gov, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech, which endorsed the building of the Ground Zero mosque two blocks from the site of an Islamist terrorist attack that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans. In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said the State Department does “not take a position” on the Ground Zero mosque but merely wanted to help people abroad “understand” the debate on the issue. Asked if State would publish opinions of those on the other side of the debate, Crowley said: “We could very well post other points of view on this issue.”
“The posting on america.gov was geared toward helping people elsewhere understand both an issue of some debate in this country, but most importantly that we were going to be guided in resolving this issue by our values,” Crowley explained to me over the phone. “And we thought it was useful for them to hear directly from one of the participants in this issue, Mayor Bloomberg.”
Considering the myriad opinions on this topic, picking a single set of remarks, and choosing to publish those but not others, could be considered an endorsement of sort of that particular position. But Crowley vigorously denied this was the case.
Full story: State Department: Maybe We’ll Publish Remarks of Ground Zero Mosque Opponents, Too | The Weekly Standard