9/11 + 7: Zero at Ground Zero

Manhattan Institute scholar Steven Malanga explains succinctly how, seven years after the atrocities of 9/11, the WTC Tower project is mired in government red tape, with years before anything can go up on the 16-acre site.  The only rebuilt structure is 7 WTC, rebuilt by developer Larry Silverstein; ground was broken for the 52-story tower in May 2002, as the cleanup of Ground Zero was finishing, and it opened for tenants in 2006.  Meanwhile, local pols demonized who else but Silverstein, calling him greedy for having the temerity to strike tough commercial bargains, while they and the gaggle of activists hovering like vultures over Ground Zero cannot get their collective act together to do anything but carp and posture.  In Malanga's telling, even Rudy did not cover himself with glory on this one.  Malanga details the whole mess in a riveting read.  Mayor Mike has, it seems, brought the Big Apple back to some of the ways that got the city into the mess of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.

Dan Henninger goes farther, calling the impasse at Ground Zero a metaphor for our contemporary politics, in which "can-do" is replaced by "can't possibly do"; 19 agencies created "a perfect storm of contemporary American politics" in which "toxic" values such as being "inclusive" and allowing families of the victims to be "heard" have made productive decisions impossible.  The cost rises above $15 billion and counting.

Perhaps instead of an oddly-shaped building and a lachrymose memorial it is best to leave the pit as it is.  It is stark, ugly and irrefutable testament to our enemies and what they wish to do to our civilization and society--the first installment on a long-term payment plan.  Doing so is cheaper, by $15+ billion, and teaches a better lesson than the proposed memorial, which ignores the vast difference between victims trapped inside the towers and the heroes that went into the towers to try to save them.