There is obviously a strategy to keep the cat-in-the-bag at all costs. But the editorial above lays out a case that can’t be denied. Officials have made no effort to address the possibilities presented by the Twin Towers II plan. No doubt, if they could discredit it, they would have. But they cannot, because it presents a real solution from every vantage. It is the ultimate win-win.

It is anyone’s guess what is behind the irrational resistance to such an enormously popular option, given its superior feasibility. But now that Mr. Silverstein requires transfusions of public funds, whatever is going on has to give way to official recognition of the public’s role in determining the future of the site. As the New York Daily News noted three weeks ago, it’s time to: “Come clean on Ground Zero.” And then, the cat will be out of the bag for good.

Letter faxed to Mayor Bloomberg and the Summit Leaders on 5/29/09

Letter faxed to Attorney General Cuomo on 6/2/09

Email sent to the New York City Council Members, the New York and New Jersey
Legislatures, and faxed to NY and NJ Congressional delegations on 6/3/09

Whose interests are served by keeping the public in the dark about the opportunity we have to build a real World Trade Center? What possible defense can there be for keeping people misinformed? An unmistakeably Stalinist atmosphere has characterized the way the media has covered Ground Zero. Now, the more dysfunctional the project becomes, the more chilling is the total failure to report on what Twin Towers II offers. A few brave voices have been raised, but gutsy columnists can’t make up for timid editors. We wonder what they are afraid of — or is it who? David Shuster’s MSNBC show was replaced by a Bloomberg booster earlier this year, just weeks after he drew attention to the insanity at the WTC. Was that a coincidence?

We have tried to find new ways to make the advantages of Twin Towers II finally register with the chattering class, but there is an apparent fear of being sent to a professional Gulag if anyone shows the bad form of giving the plan any exposure whatsoever.

If groupthink were all that is involved it would be bad enough, but there is a chilling strong-arm quality to the scenario that is alarming — or should be. We’ve actually been told by individuals in the media that they would be blackballed if they gave us a boost. But even if no one had ever admitted that, the way this has been covered makes it clear. It is like a black hole that can be detected by the way everything around it behaves.

Most bizarre of all was a columnist for a major financial website who wrote to us last fall, saying how impressed he was with our efforts and asking to help with “one of the great undertakings of our lifetime.” After a two-hour conference call with him and an influential associate of his, they sounded confident of having the contacts to breakthrough the sound barrier around this issue. We warned them that they would be stepping on some toes that could and would make trouble for them but the associate assured us that they were “in this from cradle to grave.” We never heard from them again, not even an email to say “we changed our minds…”

So when we detect a Soviet-style method to the madness, we aren’t imagining it. But we really don’t know what is behind it all — why something that matters so much to so many and is seen by most people as a “no-brainer” — building better than ever Twin Towers — has been treated by the New York media as if it were a preposterous idea. A Pulitzer Prize was awarded to an account that never mentions the strong support that has always existed for rebuilding. And “documentaries” on 9/11 completely failed to document it.

But the real mystery is how they think they can get away with it.