I liked this, from a reader:

Jonah,

The mosque near Ground Zero wouldn’t be an issue if not for the inexcusable fact that Ground Zero proper is still a gaping hole in the skyline.  If we had already built our monument to American resilience, with anti-aircraft guns on the 160th floor and an all-night disco in the basement, we wouldn’t give a rat’s patoot how close some knucklehead is building his mosque.  The mosque wouldn’t smack of an end-zone dance because it would be dwarfed by, not tower over, the site of the attack.We shouldn’t be worried because of plans for a mosque near Ground Zero.  We should be worried because, going on a decade after the attack, we still haven’t rebuilt the site itself.  What’s wrong with us?

“Rebuild it, bigger” has been my position since 9/12.

Update: From a reader:

Jonah,Thank you to you and your reader.  I have thought from the very beginning if Ground Zero were not still a gaping hole in lower Manhattan, this would be an afterthought.  This was the first time I have seen that sentiment expressed in the media.  I also agree that Bloomberg six months ago could have avoided this whole fiasco.  He could have called in some of his billionaire buddies with real estate in Manhattan and gotten these folks a mosque or cultural center built with little or no media attention.  From a legal standpoint, unless there exists actual evidence this group is using terrorist money or aiding and abetting terrorists I do not think there was anything NYC could have done, though as you point out they certainly haven’t hesitated to use the power of the government to push out other prospective builders.  I also think that if this group and other Muslims are that interested in peace and unity they would have looked elsewhere to build this center.  That they insist on doing this over the objections of the family’s who lost loved-ones on 9/11 tells me all I need to know about this group.