Michelle Boorstein:

Long before President Obama waded into the vociferous debate over a mosque near Ground Zero, a group of conservative writers and bloggers critical of Islam had seized on the issue and helped transform it into a national political spectacle.

I had seen links to bloggers opposing the mosque, but didn't really pay any attention until the President decided it would be useful in pandering to a Ramadan conference.

I still think it's a cultural, not a legal, issue. But it wasn't anything serious until Obama blundered into it. When one learns that the group behind the project is called the Cordoba Initiative, however, one wonders what sort of preaching and prayers will take place there and how its vicinity to the World Trade Center will be portrayed by terrorist recruiters. As Christopher Hitchens' dryly observes, "We need not automatically assume the good faith of those who have borrowed this noble name for a project in lower Manhattan."