Daisy Khan and Sally Quinn

Daisy Khan, the wife of the Ground Zero mosque imam, strikes a defiant tone in an interview with Sally Quinn. The more resolute she and her husband appear about constructing the mosque at Ground Zero -- the wishes and feelings of 9/11 victims be damned -- the more open to question their motivations are.

Obviously, one doesn't win respect and affection through bullheaded intransigence -- or by blaming only the GOP for an opinion shared by 70% of the country (oh, how I wish 70% of the US were Republican!).

To me, it's slightly chilling to read Khan's quote that "We have to take our opponents and transform them." "Tranform them" how? Well, she goes on, "We have to convince people that not all Muslims are extremists." How, one might ask, would her behavior about the location of the mosque be any different -- any less open to discussion or compromise -- if she were an extremist? What about her attitude has anything of tolerance or compassion or interfaith understanding?

Amazingly, her reasoning seems to be: We must force people to accept the Ground Zero mosque in order to make them be tolerant of us. Not too logical.

Despite Khan's striking of the victim pose about the treatment of Muslims in America, one might point out that the lot of American Muslims is far preferable to that of Christians in many Muslim countries. She and her husband might get a little farther if they'd model the tolerance and compassion they are demanding from the rest of us.