A Little History is in Order.

From Sean Linnane,: "Newt Gingrich believes that the choice to build this structure so close to Ground Zero was a political decision designed to send a statement and thus must be viewed in that context, rather than simply in the context of whether a house of worship should be allowed to be built (there are over 100 mosques in New York City and over 1000 in the United States)."

I find this interesting. Because Newt believes he understands what he thought they meant but didn't say (sounds like projection) we must therefore condemn the mosque. But what if he's wrong? What if he's blowing smoke about the meaning of Cordoba and the mosque built there 1300 years ago. Even Wikipedia doesn't claim that the mosque celebrated the capture of the city and even it points out that the mosque was built some 70 years after the Moors conquered the city and was built on the site of a church they BOUGHT from the Christians. Hardly an "up-yours" to the white folk. It also mentions that there is no mosque there now, only the Catholic Cathedral that was built partly inside it.  Again, not the symbol of all-powerful Islam if you haven't owned it for a thousand years is it?

But I'm not a history major and I don't trust Wikipedia if I don't already know the answer so here is a good explanation of the problem with Newt Gingrich's version of history from a medieval scholar.