Michael D Brown

Photograph of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan by Digital Globe.

How many times have you thought something but dared not speak it because of political correctness, or sensitivity to others' feelings, or fear of backlash? Come on, fess up. I'll confess to having many times thought about Ground Zero in Manhattan and thought, maybe we (FEMA, New York City, State of New York) shouldn't have cleaned it up so fast because the wreckage was a reminder that we had been attacked and that we were at war.

Then later those thoughts became more along the lines of Ground Zero is now a symbol of America's short term memory loss, of our bureaucratic stasis, of our political inertia. But I dared not express those thoughts because well, it was New York, people had died there, survivors and victims' families were embroiled in dissension and debate about the site design and other issues. So just leave it alone.

And then someone came forward and said goodbye to Ground Zero and expressed those thoughts that I had harbored secretly. And they did it in the Wall Street Journal.

Bret Stephens, author of the Journal's weekly column, Global View, wrote about the Journal's move from Lower Manhattan to Midtown and expressed his frustrations:

Five years ago, after the site had been cleared of debris but before most of the reconstruction work had begun, Ground Zero still meant just two things: outrage and defiance.

Yes, 5 years ago, when I was outraged and defiant. We'll clean this up under budget and ahead of schedule. These people attacked us, killed fellow citizens on U.S. soil and we'll retaliate and take them out. Five years ago it was outrage and defiance.

But since Mr. Stephens had watched the "progress" at Ground Zero from his Wall Street Journal office windows, he's now come to a different perspective:

Today, by contrast, my emotional connection to Ground Zero mainly involves disillusion. Disillusion with the new smorgasbord design that replaced Mr. Libeskind's, the various elements of which are testaments to the egotism of their several rock-star architects. Disillusion with the endless bickering between developer Larry Silverstein, the city and state of New York, the Port Authority, and the rest of the "stakeholders," real or self-styled, with their never-ending Demands That Must Be Met. Disillusion with the fact that today, three years after the cornerstone of the 1,776 foot Freedom Tower was laid (for a second time!), only a few steel beams rise above street level to a height of about 100 feet. Disillusion that the name "Freedom Tower" has now been dropped. Disillusion that in 2007 two firefighters, Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia, died in the damaged Deutsche Bank building adjacent to Ground Zero because the Environmental Protection Agency, or whoever, wouldn't countenance the thought of simply demolishing it with a few well-placed charges of dynamite. Disillusion that it will cost more to deconstruct that squalid tower one floor at a time than it did to build it. Disillusion upon disillusion, compounded into a sense of disgust.

Disillusion.

And then Mr. Stephens puts it all in perspective:

Yes, I know: Rebuilding the site, as various responsible officials endlessly repeat, is a "three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle." What do they suppose the Apollo missions were? It took eight years for the U.S. to go from John F. Kennedy's 1961 man-on-the-moon speech to an actual man on the moon, a distance of about 240,000 miles. At Ground Zero, it has taken about as long to move just one corner of the site from 70 feet below ground to 100 feet above. The whole endeavor is fast turning into the American version of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, under construction since the 1880s.

In August, 2002 I announced some $4.5 billion in FEMA funding for work at Ground Zero.  Hillary Clinton, Governor George Pataki were there.  We were optimistic, enthusiastic and determined that progress would be made.  And it was.  But that was then.

Now it's disillusionment.  We're taking too long.  We're embroiled in lawsuits.  We're embroiled in bureaucracy.  We're embroiled. Period.  Osama bin Laden must be laughing. 

Now I'm mad again.  Thanks for writing, Mr. Stephens, what many of us have probably been thinking.

You can read Bret Stephens' article here.