SEND 'EM PACKING
NEW YORK Post Opinion
August 12, 2005 -- Maybe — just maybe — the folks at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. finally are starting to see the problem with the cultural facilities planned for Ground Zero.
If so, we can guess why: concern over sluggish donations for the 9/11 memorial.
(Hey, whatever it takes.)
Chairman John Whitehead yesterday said the Drawing Center is now seeking "alternative sites" to Ground Zero. And he gave the International Freedom Center until Sept. 23 to explain why it shouldn't be booted from the site.
If the IFC's plans aren't up to snuff, Whitehead said, "we will find another use or tenant consistent with our objectives for that space."
That's a start. Now all that's left is for Whitehead to drop the "if" — and just send the IFC packing now. Because there is no way that museum can ever be appropriate at Ground Zero.
The Drawing Center already had conceded that the spot might not be suitable.
Now it's all but official: It will look to locate at a venue where its exhibitions can bash America — or praise it — to its heart's content. Where vulgar "art" can be displayed — at private expense and on land not in the public trust.
That is how it should be.
The Drawing Center is to be applauded for its integrity. And honesty.
It seems "prudent . . . to look at alternatives, if in fact the Ground Zero site is not going to work out," said center spokesman Fraser Seitel. "The Drawing Center," he added, "like any cultural institution, stands for artistic freedom."
By contrast, prudence and integrity are hardly terms that fairly describe the IFC's record. Indeed, that facility (the brainchild of folks like Tom Bernstein, whose Human Rights First is suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for prisoner "abuses" in the War on Terror) has taken quite a different tack.
Unlike the Drawing Center, the IFC has disingenuously, stubbornly refused to admit that it can't guarantee that it won't "denigrate America," give the nation's enemies a platform or open its doors to base, tasteless material.
Instead, the center has responded to Gov. Pataki's demand for such assurances — impossible demands, to be sure — by pretending it can work things out.
But let no one be fooled: It knows very well that it can't, and won't, provide those assurances. Not in good faith, anyway.
Apparently, the IFC will now detail its plans and present them for public review.
It will hope to fool the public — and, maybe, clueless officials — into thinking its plans pass muster.
It will say — as it already has — that its board and staff members are patriots who love America, love freedom and who merely want to highlight freedom's virtues, and the nation's.
But even if they go so far as to promise — cross-their-hearts — that they'll never, ever mount anti-American or otherwise inappropriate displays, who's to say the freedom-of-speech crowd won't one day force them to do just that? And on strong grounds?
Yesterday, Whitehead once again passed the hat for the memorial.
"The responsibility for the successful completion of the fundraising campaign and the construction of the memorial lies with all of us," he said. "We ask that all parties . . . join together in the fundraising effort."
Clearly, all the Sturm und Drang over the IFC and Drawing Center are making folks think twice about shelling out bucks on the project. As well it should.
No one who objects to "open-ended," possibly anti-American, exhibits at Ground Zero should give a dime to Whitehead & Co. The sooner he and his bosses — Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg — understand that the IFC is unworkable, and will forever jeopardize funding, the sooner they may move to scrap it.
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