After Obama’s initial comment on the mosque over the weekend, one of my regulars e-mailed me:

Scores of Democrat candidates will now make themselves look reasonable by strenuously disagreeing with his highness on the Ground Zero mosque. Even better, maybe a delegation of party elders will develop some cred with independents by making him change his mind. It’s as plain as it can possibly be.

Today:

Democratic Senate candidates are taking pains to distance themselves from — or avoid altogether — President Barack Obama’s remarks supporting the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was one of the first to announce his break with the president, saying Monday through a spokesman that he believes the mosque “should be built someplace else.”
He was joined by Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.), a conservative Democrat running for Senate in Louisiana, who also announced Monday afternoon that he disagreed with the president’s support for the contentious plan to build a mosque two blocks away from Sept. 11 memorial site.

Often, when a political party appears to be in disarray, it’s because they’re in disarray. But it is entirely possible that the administration knew that while they were going to take their lumps politically over Obama’s stance, they were opening up an easy way for Democrats to distance themselves from the administration in a manner that is likely to have minimal long-term consequences.