The case of the "Ground Zero Mosque"—that is, for those who've been on Mars for the last few weeks, the Islamic Cordoba House that is to include a mosque, along with an auditorium, a swimming pool, art exhibition spaces, bookstores, and restaurants, though it is not to be built at Ground Zero, but rather, two blocks away—continues to prove highly teachable, as the academy likes to describe topics amenable to Socratic or other instructive dispute. But the dispute hasn't yet finished granting its gifts. Critics of the Islamic center haven't taken their own premises seriously enough, and the defense of the mosque has stopped too soon. Stare into the cauldron of the dispute and you see American values boiling.