Have we ever had a president so disconnected from the heart of America?

On Friday night, at a White House iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, Obama strode directly into the blazing controversy over whether a mosque should be built two blocks from Ground Zero.

Speaking as though this were simply an open-and-shut case of constitutional law, Professor Obama declared that Muslims “have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” including “the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan.”

Hailed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who also sees this as an issue of tolerance and religious freedom, Obama had poured gasoline on a fire that had him in headlong retreat Saturday morning.

“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That is what our country is about.”