Suddenly, Everyone Wants This Guy

There's apparently only one person who can get us out of this mosque mess, and it's ... George Bush? This is the conclusion drawn by Byron York of the Washington Examiner, who's marveling at the spate of pleas in recent days by the likes of Maureen Dowd, Eugene Robinson, and Peter Beinart calling for Bush to weigh in.

"Distressed by President Obama's waffling on the issue," they want Bush to endorse the project "because in this case Bush understands better than Obama the connection between the war on terror and the larger question of America's relationship with Islam," writes York. "It's an extraordinary change of position for commentators who long argued that Bush had done grievous harm to America's image in the Muslim world and that Obama represented a fresh start for the United States."