(part two below)

Howard Dean was a breath of fresh air last night when he spoke at length on the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy. He believes Muslims have every right to build the mosque, but should reconsider making a freedom of religion cause out of Ground Zero.

(Self-serving talk show hosts should not co-opt Martin Luther King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial, in a similar can/should problem. The nuns dismantled their memorial on the edge of Auschwitz in a can/should solution that was not afterwards framed as a defeat for free expression.)

Disgusting anti-Muslim rhetoric has been flying on the airwaves, making everyone crazy in ways that seem unAmerican, if only it were so.

Dean defends location-critics unfairly stigmatized and lumped-in with the bigots.

Almost every objection Keith Olbermann makes is against the extreme bigots, which is important, but that leaves the thoughtful location-critics out of the conversation. The center is supposed to be about dialogue, but so far, one side refuses to talk to the Governor, and is adamant to make a legalistic and argumentative stance when there are more pragmatic solutions.