THE FREEDOM CENTER: GOOD RIDDANCE
NEW YORK POST Editorial
September 29, 2005
Gov. Pataki put the International Freedom Center out of its misery yesterday. Good for him.
"There remains too much opposi tion, too much controversy over the programming of the IFC, and we must move forward with our first priority — the creation of an inspiring memorial," Pataki said. "The IFC cannot be located on the memorial quadrant."
Again, good for the governor.
And, if you don't mind, we'll indulge in a little back-patting, too — of ourselves.
After all, from the moment Debra Burlingame — whose brother was a pilot of one of the hijacked 9/11 planes — blew the whistle on the Freedom Center, The Post waged a relentless fight to keep it away from Ground Zero.
Month after month, we made the case for moving it elsewhere, imploring the governor and mayor to take action.
"The International Freedom Center is to be a 250,000-square-foot museum with a self-professed mission to 'harness the power of history and use it as a springboard for contemporary dialogue and debate' on the meaning of freedom," we wrote back in June.
" 'Dialogue and debate,' huh?
"Time to reach for the revolver.
"Because odds are that, at the end of the day, this center won't focus on freedom's triumphs, so much as on its failures — particularly those in which America can be painted as the culprit."
Others, like The New York Times and the Daily News — whether out of innocent naiveté or outright sympathy for the IFC's America-bashing agenda — took the opposite approach.
The Times actually attacked Burlingame and her supporters for having the nerve to challenge what the Gray Lady deemed a noble cause.
The Snooze sat on the fence for months, scratching its head, wondering if some compromise could be worked out.
On Sunday, a News editorial urged officials to give the center's sponsors "the go-ahead to keep developing their plans while trying to build public support."
Exquisite timing, no?
Burlingame herself credited The Post with playing a key role in turning the tide and getting officials to act.
"The New York Post was instrumental in helping us with this fight," Burlingame said yesterday. "The New York Post recognized what was at stake here . . .
"The New York Post never let go of this issue when other papers were twiddling their thumbs."
You're welcome, Debra.
And we don't mind saying we're grateful — America is grateful — that you took up the cause in the first place.
Over the course of the past few weeks, more and more folks climbed aboard.
Last Friday, New York's junior senator, Hillary Clinton, issued an exclusive statement to The Post, saying that she couldn't support the plan.
"I am troubled by the serious concerns family members and first responders have expressed to me," Clinton said. "I do not believe we can move forward until it . . . addresses their concerns."
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani — who speaks with singular authority — also weighed in: "They should change the whole concept and scrap [the] plans and focus it on 9/11. I think it's a mistake."
That, after condemnations by the city's firefighters union, which lost 343 members on that grim day, and the police union, which lost 23.
There were even plans by three local congressmen to launch a congressional probe into the use of federal funds at Ground Zero.
Not to mention Burlingame herself — plus at least 15 groups representing 9/11 families and some 47,000 anti-museum petition-signers.
Of course, there were fence-sitters.
Most notably was state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer — who presumes to oversee Ground Zero as governor; he was being briefed on the center yesterday when Pataki killed the idea.
New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, too, believed it was possible to split the baby at Ground Zero.
As did Mayor Bloomberg: "Although I understand Gov. Pataki's decision, I am disappointed that we were not able to find a way to reconcile the freedoms we hold so dear with the sanctity of the site," Hizzoner said.
Frankly, it's a wonder this travesty was hatched in the first place.
The center was the brainchild of one Tom Bernstein, whose group, Human Rights First, is devoted exclusively to blaming America for just about everything wrong in the world.
It invited in "scholars," like Columbia Univesity's Eric Foner, who wrote after 9/11: "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating from the White House."
Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, was made an IFC adviser.
Meanwhile, the center planned to hand over control of its programming to ultra-liberal academicians. Its exhibits and forums were to focus heavily on the international role in the march of freedom — the world's response to 9/11.
And, as if further proof was necessary, the IFC provided it yesterday.
Pataki had explicitly offered to "work with the IFC to explore other locations for the center" — even some spots within the 16-acre Ground Zero footprint. But center officials thumbed their noses at him (and New York), saying they wouldn't even consider another locale.
The memorial quadrant at Ground Zero "is the site for which the IFC was created," it said, "as an integral part of Daniel Libeskind's master site plan." (Well, whoop de-do!)
"We do not believe there is a viable alternative place for the IFC at the World Trade Center site. We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end." (Three cheers for that!)
What did New York lose? "[A] museum of freedom at the place where freedom was so brutally challenged. The failure to accept the offer of nine great universities to offer cultural programming on freedom issues in the heart of Lower Manhattan. . ." Blah, blah, blah.
And so on and so forth.
We have no regrets.
Pataki did the right thing by pulling the plug on the International Freedom Center.
May it rest in peace.
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