The Battle For Ground Zero, Part XXVI

The NY Post slams the NY Times for its editorial on unAmerican behavior relating to the IFC and The Drawing Center mess.

The center is the brainchild of some folks who think it'll be dandy to discuss — among other things — America's dirty laundry in public, on the public dime. Or, as one put it last spring, "the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you, and I, will disagree."

Once the heat was on, museum officials began talking out of both sides of their mouths, saying the facility would "never" feature exhibits that "denigrate" America — but also that "absolute guarantees" to that effect, as Gov. Pataki has demanded, are impossible.

The honorable course is for the facility to bow out of the project — and find a home somewhere off-site.

Freedom of speech would be preserved, but gratuitous insults to 9/11's dead — and the site where they died — would be avoided.

This is the argument we and others, like Debra Burlingame (whose brother was the pilot of one of the hijacked planes on 9/11), have advanced — in the spirit of free and open debate about the future of the site.

Doing so hasn't made us — and, especially, Burlingame — "un-American."

And the readiness to hurl the term says more about the Times than it does about anyone else.

Meanwhile, Oliver Stone continues to populate his WTC 9/11 picture medium profile actors and actresses, including Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Michael Pena.

Mike Kelly of the Bergen Record writes of the dissent and mess at Ground Zero, by looking back on the site from a vantage point of 2011 - the 10 year anniversary of the attacks:

THINK AHEAD.|It's 2011, 10 years after that terrible September day when four jetliners were hijacked and the world changed. You decide to make a pilgrimage to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. Here is what you might find:

A dance performance. Poetry readings. A multi-media exhibit on the horrors of slavery. Paintings by Zen monks. Children's drawings about bigotry.

And 9/11?

Well, yes, there may be a memorial and a museum by 2011. But to find it, you'll have to go below ground. Get the picture?

Ground Zero is a mess right now. Almost four years after the Twin Towers fell, there is still no agreement on what the place should look like. If there is a modern Tower of Babel, this may be it.

He may be right. The cultural center plan is a mess, and is doing nothing to advance the development of the site. While supporters claim that this is government or a group of critics censoring their right to speak, it is also a test of whether government should fund the speech of those who criticize. No one is stopping these groups from criticizing the Administration or the USA, but many people question the rationale for permitting groups that are critical of the USA to participate in Ground Zero in such close proximity to where 3,000 people were murdered by a group fueled by religious hatred of the West, and of America in particular because of the freedoms that we hold dear.

UPDATE:
Cox and Forkum skewer the New York Times, and wonder whether we need interpretative centers for other memorials, like Gettysberg or the MLK Jr. Memorial.