Bill Kristol responds to the President’s patronizing dismissal of critics of the Ground Zero mosque: 

For Obama, 9/11 was a “deeply traumatic event for our country.” Traumatic events invite characteristic reactions and over-reactions–fearfulness, anger, even hysteria. That’s how Obama understands the source of objections to the Ground Zero mosque. It’s all emotional. The arguments don’t have to be taken seriously. The criticisms of the mosque are the emotional reactions of a traumatized people.

But Americans aren’t traumatized. 9/11 was an attack on America, to which Americans have responded firmly, maturely, and appropriately. Part of our sensible and healthy reaction is that there shouldn’t be a 13-story mosque and Islamic community center next to Ground Zero (especially when it’s on a faster track to be built than the long-delayed memorial there). But Obama (like Bloomberg) doesn’t feel he even has to engage the arguments against the mosque–because he regards his fellow citizens as emotionally traumatized victims, not citizens who might have a reasonable point of view.