Michelle Malkin has a link to a Wall Street Journal piece by International Freedom Center President Richard J. Tofel in which he seeks to calm fears regarding the 9/11 memorial turning into an orgy of anti-Americanism:

Then there will be the Memorial Center, a museum devoted to the events of September 11 itself, with exhibit space roughly equal in size to that at the International Freedom Center. The Memorial Center will tell the stories of the day—of heroism and sacrifice, of rescue and service, of courage and resolution, of memory and loss. It is the Memorial Center that will contain the iconic artifacts of September 11.

That is necessary, but not sufficient.

Why not? Why isn’t a simple memorial to the memory of those who perished on that terrible day enough? What possible addition could one make to such a memorial that wouldn’t seek to horn in on the sacred homage we owe to the nearly 3,000 of our countrymen who lost their lives in what Norman Podhoretz has called the “opening salvo” of World War IV?

This, from Martin Palous, a founding member of the Czechoslovakian human rights group “Charter 77” along with Vclav Havel:

“9/11 is a story of courage, hope, and freedom: the courage to make the decision to go into the buildings to save someone, the hope to start anew after disaster, the wish to base our society on free will in the context of a pluralistic public sphere. It was a moment of truth in the story of freedom, and it connects the United States with democratic revolutions around the world, which share this quality of believing in the possibility of new beginnings.” Out of the tragedy of September 11 came a renewed civic spirit, and the International Freedom Center will work to sustain that. This is work that can unite people of goodwill everywhere…”

Very poetic but hardly the point. Mr. Tofel quotes Palous and indicates he’s one of the “35 scholars of freedom” who are advisor’s to the IFC. Since one of the driving forces of the IFC is Tom Bernstein, head of Human Rights First, an anti-Bush, anti-American group that would love to turn the memorial into a paean to all of the sins, both real and imagined, in America’s history, one wonders how much of Mr. Palous’ “advice” is going to be taken and how much from Mr. Bernstein and his Moveon crew.

Then Mr. Tofel gets to the nub of the matter:

To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you—and I—will disagree. But that is the point, the proof of our society’s enduring self-confidence and humanity. Moreover, the International Freedom Center will rise above the politics of the moment. It will not exist to precisely define “freedom” or to tell people what to think, but to get them to think—and to act in the service of freedom as they see it. And it will always do so in a manner respectful of the victims of September 11.

Why do moonbats think that every statement made in praise of America or in America’s defense needs to be “balanced” with some opposing point of view while the statements of America’s enemies and detractors need to be left standing alone so that we can better understand why the murderous thugs we’re fighting oppose us?

It’s loony.

This has got to be nipped in the bud now. Go here and contact the people on this list. Let them know that 9/11 is sacred ground and should be perhaps the one place in the country reserved to honor America, not denigrate her.

UPDATE

Jacob Laskin at FrontPage has an extraordinary article outlining the controversey. A sample:

In remarks posted on the International Freedom Center’s website, (historian Eric) Foner explains that the memorial will require a “critical eye,” and stresses that, “There have been many points in our history where freedom has been restricted, and has gone backwards.” What relevance this has to a September 11 memorial is unclear, but it does suggest that leftists like Foner intend to use the memorial to project their view of American history as an unabated stretch of oppression and intolerance.

This is almost too unbelievable to be true. I wonder if people who donated to this project knew what they were giving money for?

I needn’t have asked:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this message, coupled with the center’s less than diverse assemblage of advisors, has enticed the moneyed left to bankroll the center’s memorial. Sponsors include the Open Society Institute, the grant-making arm of leftist financier George Soros. Another sponsor is the left-wing Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The fund’s interest in the memorial is easily deciphered: its administrators have long maintained that the greatest threat to the post-911 world comes from the United States. As the fund’s Peace and Security Program has understatedly put it, “At the start of the 21st century and in the wake of September 11, 2001, there exists a pressing need to examine the content, style, and tone of U.S. global engagement and to ensure that they reflect an understanding of the reality and implications of increasing global interdependence.”

Open Society Institute is also funded by the Heinz Foundation. Maybe they’ll have a little space highlighting the 2004 election that was “stolen” from Senator Kerry?

And Kevin at Wizbang weighs in on Tofel’s damage control:

Unfortunately for us the thoughtful response amounts to little more than, “trust us.” There’s lots of quotations, but very little on specifics. Surely the vagueness with which he describes the IFC content is by design, as reactions to the revelations provided by Burlingame were nearly instantaneous and vociferous.

Lime Shurbert has more including a letter from a soldiers mother sent to Mr. Tofel. One word of advice to Mr. Tofel: Don’t get the mothers of soldiers mad at you.