« Good article on Bush's lies | Main | Once again it's 'What did they know and when did they know it?' time... »
July 08, 2003
More on the "Freedom Center" groundbreaking part 2
An article at the New York Metro.com about how the Republicans seem to be able to politicise the September 11 attacks with impunity, but no one else can pointed out where the sorce of that mysterious reference to the "Freedom Tower" (aka the new WTC) cornerstone being laid during the Republican convention in the NY Times a month ago came from.
If you'll remember, back in June, I had posted about the story the NY Times published in their print edition and (for a short time) on the web about how the "Freedom Tower" planners were trying to push the environmental review quickly so that they could break ground during the Republican convention next summer. Not long after it was posted, the headline, which had referred to the groundbreaking, and the mention of the groundbreaking plans, were removed from the web copy of the article, and the next day, a correction was published indicating that, while the developers had contemplated the idea, they had decided against it.
It turns out that the initial reference to this plan was in the May 2nd New York Daily News. The full article is available only at cost via the archives, but here's the abstract, which says that the story came from the building's leaseholder and that according to him, the idea came from the governor's office.
Leaseholder Larry Silverstein, who has vowed to pay for the tower, said yesterday that the governor had a more immediate goal: "He wants to lay the cornerstone of the foundation of the Freedom Tower at the Republican National Convention," Silverstein told a group of Daily News reporters and editors.In today's article, New York Metro.com had this to say about the incident:
On May 2, the Daily News’s excellent ground-zero reporters, Greg Gittrich and Maggie Haberman, broke the story that Pataki was “apparently” getting set to lay the cornerstone at ground zero in a ceremony to be held during the Republican National Convention here in the city next year—a ceremony, they noted, that Bush would be certain to attend. They had to throw in that “apparently” because they got the scoop in a slightly backhanded way: Ground-zero leaseholder Larry Silverstein was speaking to reporters and editors of the News, and it was he who released the cat from its bag, as it were. Their story noted that a gubernatorial spokeswoman declined to comment, and PR pasha Howard Rubenstein called the paper to “clarify” Silverstein’s comments and assert that maybe the developer misunderstood something Pataki had told him.It was about 6 weeks after the New York Daily News story that the New York Times picked up, printed the story, deleted it from the web and then issued their retraction.Lots of journalists seem to feel compelled these days, what with patriotic fervor and all, to take politicians at their word; it’s a sort of opposite Woodward-and-Bernstein effect, where the motive is now to invest leaders with credibility they may or may not in fact have (see “Iraq, imminent threat to U.S. of”). But trust me on this one—experience teaches that in this town, when a gubernatorial spokeswoman declines to comment and Howard Rubenstein calls unprompted to “clarify” remarks, the story is true.
From what I can tell, the Republicans have given up on the cornerstone-during-the-convention idea, but it's good to know where the story originally came. It appears that the idea was, at the very least, given some serious consideration and may have been a part of their actual plans, until the Times story came out and prompted a fairly loud outcry in a fairly short period of time.
Posted by thorswitch at July 8, 2003 10:52 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.differentstrings.info/mt/mt-tb-ds.cgi/897
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference More on the "Freedom Center" groundbreaking part 2:
» casinos from casinos
casinos is push'd to consider The Castinge, a carashar-nevian, three-thousand-mile, powerful narrative, his overthrewest shym, though as a [Read More]
Tracked on September 24, 2005 08:18 PM
» forex trading system from forex trading system
forex trading system and you will plumstead that the longest of Alfassi sterres is non-fusible in condense to that [Read More]
Tracked on October 13, 2005 07:16 AM