The Freedom Tower

Investor’s Business Daily says a “nation as powerful and capable as the U.S. should have finished the rebuilding by now. Instead, according to the timetables announced recently, only the 9/11 memorial will be open by the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and even it will not be fully finished.

The centerpiece of the reconstruction, the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower skyscraper, is not expected to open at least until 2013. A $3.2 billion transit hub, now $700 million over budget, will open at the site no earlier than 2014. This glaring display of can’t-do spirit may prove in the long run to be just a local scandal. But we’re not so sure it has left the nation’s confidence unscathed.

You would think (to use an old line) that a country able to put a man on the moon could get a couple of office buildings, even big ones, rebuilt in less than a decade, along with a suitable memorial. The unfinished work at Ground Zero may make the world wonder — may even make Americans wonder — if this nation could put a man on the moon again, if it can’t even do this.

Perhaps (Mayor) Mike Bloomberg is thinking that, now that he is in line to get just one more term, he can be there to cut the ribbon at the Freedom Tower in 2013. We certainly hope that some New York mayor, whoever he or she is, will get to do that before the next term is up.

But if things had gone as they should, Bloomberg would have cut all the ribbons by now and would be leaving office with his job well done.”