I’ve gotten some pretty angry emails since my International Freedom Center post comparing GWB’s cult of infallibility to Kim Jong Il’s. Most of them single out my insensitive characterization of 9/11 family member Debra Burlingame as a toady, unwitting or not, for the current administration.
I’m no pundit, and I don’t honestly know why anyone cares what I think, but let me say it straight out: I think both the IFC and The Drawing Center should be removed from the WTC site as it’s currently planned. From the beginning, I’ve thought they were, respectively, an awkward, artificial, potentially controversial sham born out of political expediency, and a wholly inexplicable, inappropriate mis-fit with the site. Both institutions were canaries in the coal mine of the WTC rebuilding process; that they’re now controversial and should not be part of the WTC Memorial should’ve surprised no one observing this Georgian (Bush or Pataki, pick your poison) mess.
So on the basis of outcome alone, I would say that Burlingame and I and Jarvis–and now the FDNY, apparently–can agree on the most appropriate outcome: no Other Centers at the World Trade Center site. We only disagree on the reasons (i.e., the politics) why.
Burlingame has repeatedly put herself, and by implication, the families of 9/11, at the service of GWB’s political agenda. In this case, that agenda is served by deflecting responsibility for the Snohetta Centers debacle away from the Bush/Pataki crowd who made this politically exploitative bed. And every time the stalking horses of “America-bashing” and “liberal, politically correct” historical revisionism are cited as the reasons for these institutions being cut–and no mention is made of Pataki et al’s long record of pandering and political manipulation of the WTC rebuilding process–that obfuscatory agenda marches on.
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the making of, by greg allen