The Ground Zero Mosque Flap

David Kurtz shares insightful commentary on the Ground Zero mosque controversy from a Talking Points Memo reader.

Republicans ALWAYS run on symbolic issues. Their substantive positions are not popular. People don't like tax cuts for the rich, they don't like endless military commitments, they don't like corporatism, they don't like lax regulations, etc. So Republicans always pick some symbolic, unimportant issue and make it sound like it's the most important thing in the world. This is nothing more than the flag factory, the swift boats, and Reverend Wright all over again.

Terri Schaivo, anyone?

Kathleen Parker solidifies her place among CWANK's (Conservatives Who Are Not Kooks) with her column in The Washington Post.

This is why plans for the mosque near Ground Zero should be allowed to proceed, if that's what these Muslims want. We teach tolerance by being tolerant. We can't insist that our freedom of speech allows us to draw cartoons or produce plays that Muslims find offensive and then demand that they be more sensitive to our feelings. More to the point, the tolerance we urge the Muslim world to embrace as we exercise our right to free expression, and revel in the glory and the gift of irreverence, is the same we must embrace when Muslims seek to express themselves peacefully.

Nobody ever said freedom would be easy. We are challenged every day to reconcile what is allowable and what is acceptable. Compromise, though sometimes maddening, is part of the bargain. We let the Ku Klux Klan march, not because we agree with them but because they have a right to display their hideous ignorance. Ultimately, when sensitivity becomes a cudgel against lawful expressions of speech or religious belief -- or disbelief -- we all lose.

-Ballard Burgher