Cathy Young, whom I'm delighted to see writing for FrumForum, provides what strikes me as an eminently fair-minded analysis of Imam Rauf, the founder of the much-debated mosque/Islamic center that may or may not ever come into existence: "Who is this Imam Fooling?"
The upshot, as I see it: no "stealth jihadi" but not a clearly appealing figure either. And this ambiguity makes me think a little more about the anti-mosque campaign: The campaigners don't like or trust Rauf, but they're appealing to him to move the planned project, and if he builds it there anyway, apparently that will be a "defeat" for the United States. Thus, the anti-mosque campaigners have given Rauf a degree of power he certainly never would have had were it not for the massive publicity stirred up by the anti-mosque campaign.
UPDATE: And a very good piece at RealClearMarkets by Steven Malanga: "The Real Debacle at Ground Zero." Upshot: "Twelve years is a long time to bring back to the site what was its essential component when it was attacked: commerce."
