So we have bittersweet victory: The International Freedom Center will not be built at the World Trade Center.
Gov. Pataki, ever the wimp, blames the IFC:
“There remains too much opposition, too much controversy over the programming of the I.F.C.,” the governor said, “and we must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial.” Mr. Pataki said he had instructed the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to “work with the I.F.C. to explore other locations.”
But that is really Pataki’s fault: He is the one who put the IFC in this no-win position of trying to come up with inoffensive center to discuss offensive issues.
But the IFC is passive-aggressive to the end:
“We do not believe there is a viable alternative place for the I.F.C. at the World Trade Center site,” the center’s executives, Tom A. Bernstein, Peter W. Kunhardt and Richard J. Tofel, said in the statement. “We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end.”
What a cynical act. If they truly believed in their freedom center, they would have built it anywhere. But, in the end, its’ clear that they believed only in bringing their agenda to the World Trade Center memorial.
I am glad they are gone.
All credit goes to Debra Burlingame, who had the courage to tell us what was happening at the site in her original Wall Street Journal op-ed and to stand up to nothing less than personal vilification from the editorial page of The New York Times. She did this to preserve the memory of the heroes and innocents of 9/11 and to keep the memorial true to its purpose as a memorial. God bless Debra.
Here‘s Michelle Malkin, who first introduced me to Burlingame. See Take Back The Memorial, the movement that made this happen. More blog reaction here. This was a populist movement that worked.
