In A Special Comment, Countdown’s Keith Olbermann explains the misnomer and danger in calling the community center “The Ground Zero Mosque.” Olbermann clarifies the misconceptions around the community center. It appeared on MSNBC’s tv show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”

Link to the Video

In the link above, Keith Olbermann makes the argument that the community center that is being built in New York shouldn’t be called “The Ground Zero Mosque." He stated a conclusion by saying that this is a country of freedom, but forces have blown out of proportion the construction of a community center and transformed it into a training ground for terrorists and have tried to portray it as an insult to the victims of 911. Furthermore, he gives a definition of a mosque by saying a mosque is a holy place where only worship can be conducted, the site that is being constructed is a community center which is suppose to have a basketball court and a culinary school. However, this premise doesn't support his conclusion. Defining a mosque has nothing to do with US being a country of freedom and how this idea of constructing a community center has been blown out of proportion and turned it into a training ground for terrorists. He says it's suppose to be thirteen stories tall and the top two floors are suppose to be designated as a Muslim prayer place. Again, this doesn't relate to how constructing a community center in New York has been "blown out of proportion." He further supported his argument by saying that people who use this center will have more to fear from us then us from them. There is no explanation as to how Muslim people will be scared from Americans instead of Americans being scared of the Muslims.

In addition to the false premises above, he is also committing a Red Herring fallacy in the argument. His conclusion is that people have blown this out of proportion, it has transformed into a training ground for terrorists and it portrays as an insult to 911 victims. However, the premises don’t talk about any of the issues that he is suggesting. Premise 1 covers the definition of the mosque which is not relevant. Premise 2 consists of a description of the site, again, no relation to the original conclusion and in the third premise, he’s talking about a totally separate issue. This is Red Herring fallacy because, an irrelevant topic is being presented to divert the attention from the original issue.

-Akber