Last Call

Just how big should the "exclusion zone" be that supposedly should prevent the Park51 project from being built?  Of all the outfits to actually ask people that question, it's the friggin' Daily Caller and the results are both hysterical and pathetically sad.

So how many “steps away,” exactly, would a mosque need to be to avoid controversy?

It’s just not that simple, said Robert Spencer, author and editor of the website Jihad Watch, adding that it would be impossible to pin down an exact appropriate location for an Islamic center in the neighborhood.

The proximity to Ground Zero is just one component of a wide range of factors that ought to be considered, he said. These include “the historical connections of the new site to 9/11 and the buildings in the surrounding area.” Also, the site would need to be “as far away as would be necessary to take away the symbolic value that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Kahn have alluded to in saying that this mosque is intended to make a statement about 9/11.” With that in mind, he said, any answer with just a specific distance that did not provide for the other elements would be incomplete.

“I’m not going to give you an address. There is no way I could possibly do that or anybody could do that,” he replied when asked during a phone interview. “…You’re trying to trap me and I know it. You want to play the game? I know how to play this game. I’ve been doing this for many years, alright? I’ve talked to lots of reporters, I know the games you play. I ain’t playing. You’re trying to get me to give you an address and say ‘oh, if it’s one block over or one building over then it’s okay with Spencer, but one building over here, no then it’s a triumphal mosque.’ Well I’m not playing.”

Could it be because the argument is complete crap there, Rob, and that once you say "it's too close" then all of America has to qualify as too close, or your argument is exposed for the arbitrary hypocritical bull that it is when you actually do pin down a location?

Because without the veneer of "it's too close to Ground Zero" the actual problem is that you don't like Muslims, yes?