President Barack Obama appeared to enter the debate on Bloomberg's side when he raised the matter at a Muslim iftar (post-fast) dinner at the White House. "This is America," he confirmed indignantly. The next day, he changed tack in the face of a popular uproar, and claimed that he had not in fact made the statement he appeared to have made, but had instead carefully avoided making any statements about the wisdom of building anything anywhere.

Despite Obama's phantom U-turn, by the end of the summer the liberal consensus appeared to be with Bloomberg. After further negative opinion polls, Bloomberg declared that those opposed to the mosque "ought to be ashamed of themselves", adding: "To cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists." Al-Qaeda had attacked the World Trade Centre and as a result it was now vital that America reply by building a mosque.

Other politicians were not as distrustful as Bloomberg was of popular sentiment. In mid-August, Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, said on air: "Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington...We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbour." Gingrich's intervention allowed mainstream politicians respectfully to oppose the construction. But by then another element of the debate had emerged. It was one which points to perhaps the largest difference between the European and American debate on this issue.

If a mosque were to be built alongside a scene of an Islamist atrocity in Britain or mainland Europe, there would certainly be opposition to it. But in many countries, including Britain, it would lack a politically respectable figurehead. And with or without one, it would be inevitable that those most opposed to such a construction would be a very particular type of person. No political or civic leader would suggest or endorse a popular demonstration for a single reason: the only people certain to turn up would be skinheads. These would put other people off and so the opposition would be isolated and disgraced.

But since America is not as blackmailed by history as Europe, popular sentiment is still trusted. And so ordinary non-racist, family-friendly Americans started to turn out to express opposition to the mosque. Over the summer, this movement became organised. Most who rallied in opposition to the mosque, like their opponents, were decent Americans who resented the construction of a mosque so close to Ground Zero. But they reminded the American Left of their newest and dearest enemies: the Tea Party. The New York Times, among other organs of liberal opinion, repeatedly depicted the imam of the mosque and his wife in an entirely uncritical, glowingly interfaith, light. But the opponents of the mosque were not granted that liberty. They were written off as deeply un-nuanced, knuckle-dragging types — opposed to Islam, opposed to Muslims and as a result, it was repeatedly claimed, distinctly un-American. Opposition to the mosque, the liberal press insisted, was not patriotic but was instead actually anti-American.

On the anniversary of 9/11, a mass rally was held not far from the site of the proposed centre. The Dutch politician Geert Wilders was among those who addressed the crowd. The liberal media either ignored the event or demonised it.