I've always seen the continuing hole at Ground Zero as symbolic of the last 8 years of political leadership. With the full weight of New Yorkers & the American people behind them to do what's right after a terrible tragedy, instead the reconstruction at what used to be the World Trade Center has been plagued with cronyism, flawed engineering, piss poor aesthetics, numerous design revisions, cost overruns and general ineptitude that has left more or less a 16 acre hole in Manhattan 7 years after the attack. It's basically the same quality of judgment exemplified with Iraq & the rebuilding of New Orleans.

To pour more salt on the wound, this week a report by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey said the project may go as much as 20% over its $15 billion dollar budget. Also, construction at the site, originally slated to be done by this year, may not be completed until as late as 2014. That would make the rebuilding process at Ground Zero longer than the time it took NASA to put men on the Moon.

Perhaps, my Senator, it's time for you to unpack and get settled into your new home.  After all, you've already given this amazing State your voice as representative.

Maybe now, you'll simply learn to love NY.

On Saturday we learned that the army’s official historian is about to issue the second volume of its account of the war in Iraq. The army does this sort of thing routinely so they can learn from their experience. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The first volume covered the invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein and concluded that, regardless of what one thinks about the war, it went well.

The second volume is about the ugly. How the Bush administration did not have a Plan B beyond they-will-welcome-us-as-liberators-and-immediately-become a-Western-style-democracy.

The New York Post reports that World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein is having difficulty attracting tenants to the unfinished "Freedom" tower.

According to columnist Steve Cuozzo, the brokerage firm Merrill Lynch is having second thoughts about moving into the proposed Tower 3 and is asking Silverstein and the Port Authority of NY & NJ for changes which will both add considerable expense to the project and delay completion of some of the other buildings in the complex.

Yesterday I took the subway down to the vicinity of the old World Trade Center site for the first time in  a couple of years for an interview about my new book at the Dow Jones headquarters directly across the highway.  It's always shocking to see the scale of the site and the lack of progress in turning it into -- anything.  It's still a giant hole, which only serves to remind you what is missing there besides the twin towers.  That is, some 3000 lost souls.

One of them was my good friend, Jon Albert.  

So any visit is extremely painful, while also reinforcing what most of us New Yorkers did not feel -- that we should attack a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.  

Darrell Issa's (R-CA) stunning statement reducing the 9/11 attack on the United States to a "simple" plane crash is just the latest outrage from the execrable California Republican.  After all, the one-time accused car thief turned car alarm magnate attacked the families of dead Blackwater contractors, accused Valerie Plame of perjury and played a vital role in purging a U.S. attorney, just to name a few others.  Yet less than five years after he cried like a baby while announcing his withdrawal from the California governor's race, Darrell Issa mysteriously remains a force in American politics.

Here, then, are the Top 10 Moments from Darrell Issa's Hall of Shame:

Why?

Because it's the perfect summary of the Bush presidency in all it's ramifications and symbolism. It should be left as a reminder to future generations as to what happens when conservatism is allowed free reign.

Ground Zero in March 2008 remains just a hole in the ground.

Meantime, mammoth skyscrapers have been built around the world, including in NYC.

Moreover, we've built a war ship from scrap steel recovered after the 9/11 attacks.

And yet we can talk seriously about a New York "leader" like Hillary Clinton as our next president?!?  

I have a question for Hillary Clinton: If you are not able in seven years to lead rebuilding of the WTC site, what makes you think you could rebuild America after the Bush disaster?

What kind of leader are you at all?

MORE

YouTube Videos about the "Faces of the Brave"

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Over at News Hounds , who do FANTASTIC work by the way, there's a post that suggests that not only has FOX begun the drumbeat for war with Iran, they are actively trying to link Iran and 9/11. It's subtle, but this could be the beginning of a new meme.

“Outrageous” seems to be the word of choice for Republican grandstanders (AKA presidential candidates) when evaluating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s request to tour the World Trade Center site—I’m sorry, Ground Zero—while here for the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly next week.

"This is a man who has made threats against America and Israel, is harboring bin Laden's son and other Al-Qaeda leaders, is shipping arms to Iraqi insurgents and is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons," Giuliani said. "Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero -- hallowed ground for all Americans -- is outrageous," he said.

Another Republican hopeful, Senator Sam Brownback, blasted Ahmadinejad's request as "outrageous and unacceptable," describing the Iranian regime in a statement as "the biggest state sponsor of terror in the world."

I wrote a diary about this subject one year ago today. So why am I writing about it again? Because, more or less, there is still a 16 acre hole in the middle of lower Manhattan. That hole has been there for six years, and as each year passes you wonder how it could still be there.

Rebuilding after the destruction of the World Trade Center had been a debacle from the beginning, with it due largely to former New York Governor George Pataki using cronyism, flawed engineering & physics, and piss poor aesthetics to get the Freedom Tower. Since it has been announced, the Freedom Tower has underwent numerous design revisions to correct problems, and photo-op ceremonies to supposedly show the progress being made at the site seem to go nowhere.

Current reports claim construction on the site may not be completed until as late as 2013. That would make the rebuilding process at Ground Zero longer than the time it took NASA to put men on the Moon.

You’d think that if there was one place in America; one very much anticipated construction project in which the authorities in charge could manage to keep controversy, graft and corruption in check; it’d be the reconstruction project at the hallowed Ground Zero site in Manhattan, where nearly 2,800 innocent Americans were murdered.

Operating on tax-payer-funded contracts worth millions of dollars, seven separate contractors presently working for either the Port Authority, the Dormitory Authority or the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, are reportedly suspected of everything from ties to the mob to tax fraud to fatal accidents. The firms are responsible for operating bulldozers, cranes, jackhammers and pile drivers at various points around the spot where the WTC Towers stood.

And, they’re all getting a slice of the $16-billion reconstruction project.

I live on Long Island, but I rarely go into "The City". Like most people, I suppose, I'm rarely a tourist in my own home town, but I had an appointment today to see a doctor. It was no big deal, but it got me driving into Manhattan.

As I left his office, it occurred to me that after six years of living within 20 miles of the place, I had never been to see the site of the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center. So quite somberly, I chose to make my way to Ground Zero.

OK, Giuliani has claimed "I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. ... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them." And that's a load of crap:

...an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months.  ... recovery and debris removal workers ... spent a median of 962 hours at the World Trade Center site ...

Giuliani is a huge Yankees fan, and is a fixture at their games. If Rudy watched just Yankees home games during their 2001 playoff race, he would have spent 32 hours, 15 minutes watching baseball during those same three months.

Today's NYT reported that Rudy Giuliani visited Ground Zero 41 times after the planes hit the Twin Towers for a grand total of 29 hours. The Times examined NY mayoral archives that indicated that each Giuliani visit between Sept. 17 and Dec. 16, 2001 averaged about 1 hr, 25 minutes.

Considering that Rudy's justification for placing NYCs emergency management facility at WTC because it was "within walking distance of City Hall that averages a visit roughly every Other day because he had more important things to do.

Although we true-believers know that Rudy Giuliani spent time in the rubble of the World Trade Center, "as often, if not more" than the first responders, some times pesky little facts get in our way.

It seems as though Rudy's boast could be verified.  See below.

Katrina’s force broke New Orleans’ levees drowning the city, and many of its residents. Her rains drenched the Gulf Coast. Financially speaking, though, it was the insurance companies that really soaked Katrina’s survivors . . . and us, the taxpayers.

A previous piece titled Wind? Water? More like a bunch of hot air!, discussed the insurance companies written memos that apparently directed agents to blame Katrina’s damages on water, even if wind damage were present. To date, those companies have sent a $23 billion bill to the federal government’s flood insurance program for damages allegedly caused by water alone.