Latest Media Excuse for Ground Zero Mosque: Hey, You Can Buy Beer, Pizza and Shampoo in the Same Neighborhood!

The embarrassing effort by the New York Daily News to support the abomination near Ground Zero continues. The drivel we noted here yesterday was absurd enough. Today they take the great leap forward and ask why it's so bad to build the Victory Mosque when at the same time nobody much seems to mind that you can buy beer and pizza in the same area and--gasp!--even see strippers and buy porn!

Opponents of a proposed lower Manhattan mosque and community center speak in hushed tones about the sanctity of the "shadow of Ground Zero."

Tell that to the patrons of the Pussycat Lounge, a strip club where a photo of a nearly naked woman marks its location just two blocks from where the World Trade Center stood.

Or the Thunder Lingerie and peep show next door, where the marquee sports an American flag above a window display of sex toys and something called a "power pump."

Many come to the scene of the worst terrorist attack on American soil to pay tribute to pain and unspeakable tragedy. They're welcomed by solemn memorials and a visitors center amid the noise of reconstruction.

If they're so inclined, they can also buy porn, play the ponies and take care of all manner of personal business within steps of the former World Trade Center.

It's funny, but I don't ever recall the Daily News leading a crusade against porn shops and strip joints before or after 9/11, especially considering the neighborhood was littered with them for years. Having attended enough stag parties in my day--including my own--I have some vivid memories.

In a walk of the streets within three blocks of Ground Zero, the Daily News counted 17 pizza shops, 18 bank branches, 11 bars, 10 shoe stores and 17 separate salons where a girl can get her lady parts groomed.

Obviously those businesses are there for a reason: To sell products and services, and apparently they're doing just that since they're still in business.

Building a 13-story mosque to declare victory over America doesn't equate from this vantage point.

Rush Limbaugh made an excellent point today. He noted correctly the same people who support this outrage are also the people who would be up in arms if Wal-Mart announced plans to build a store in Manhattan, where currently zero Wal-Marts exist.

There are at least 10 churches in lower Manhattan south of Canal St., three synagogues, one Buddhist community center and a Hare Krishna facility. There's also a Muslim prayerhouse that, on its website, denies any connection to "any other organization trying to build anything new in the area of downtown Manhattan."

You know it's not a good idea if the other mosque in town wants no part of this.

It may be sacred ground, but the streets surrounding Ground Zero are also a place where New Yorkers work, eat and buy shampoo.

Whoa! They can buy shampoo in Lower Manhattan now? I was wondering why all those strippers and pizzamen had such lush, shiny hair.

It's one thing to see liquor stores in a neighborhood trying to return to normalcy - there are at least three - but critics say it's entirely another to talk about a mega-mosque.

"A 13-story, $100 million structure stands out as something that can be opposed," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.).

He says the mosque planners should sit down with the families of 9/11 victims to find a more appropriate location and suggested that conversation could kick-start a larger discussion about what belongs in the area and what doesn't.

King says zoning laws could be used to clean up lower Manhattan the way they were once used to attack smut in Times Square.

"There are limits to what you can be opposing just as a practical matter," King said, but he added, "Tomorrow, if some guy were to build some eight-story strip club a block away, we would do what we'd have to do."

I know what I'd do. Make plans to visit the eight-story strip emporium.