Something to consider when stewing about the mosque* at** Ground Zero

by folkbum

Among the actual plans for actual construction at the actual real and true Ground Zero is ... a massive shopping mall. It's planned for below ground level, in the actual dirt and soil that mingled with the dust and ashes of 9/11.

Apparently, a religious community center two blocks away, out of the line of sight of Ground Zero, that includes a memorial to the victims of 9/11 as arranged by an advisor to the official 9/11 Memorial and Museum committee, is an affront to our national sensibilities. However, allowing Americans to honor the memory of 3,000 dead countrymen by trying on jeans and slurping an Orange Julius is just fine.

UPDATE:

A new Siena poll of New York state finds that registered voters here continue to oppose the construction of the Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York City -- but at the same time, they overwhelmingly say that the Muslim group involved has the constitutional right to build it. [. . .]

A follow-up question asked: "Regardless of whether you personally support or oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House, do you believe the developers of the Cordoba House have a Constitutional right to proceed with the construction of the mosque and Muslim cultural center or not?" Here the answer is 64% yes, to only 28% no. Indeed, the internals of the poll show that even a majority of people who didn't support the center in the previous question still affirm the right of the organizers to construct it, by a 51%-42% margin within that sub-group.

AND Ted Olson, who argued and won Bush v Gore continues to walk away from the nutball right.

* it's not a mosque
** it's not at Ground Zero