VICTORY AT GROUND ZERO By Michelle Malkin

September 28, 2005 08:13 PM

By Michelle Malkin

After a valiant, hard-fought battle, 9/11 family member Debra Burlingame and countless other Americans who joined her have won the battle to protect Ground Zero from the Blame America crowd. For now. Kudos to everyone who wrote, called, and blogged their outrage since Burlingame blew the whistle in June and refused to relent. Via Bloomberg News:

Governor George Pataki said today he will direct development officials to drop plans for a museum of freedom at the World Trade Center site, saying it has stirred ``too much opposition, too much controversy.''

The International Freedom Center would have been put in a cultural center adjacent to a memorial for the Sept. 11 victims, and was part of the master plan for redeveloping the devastated 16-acre site of the nation's worst terrorist attack.

In the last several months, some victims' families, groups of firefighters and police officers and public officials said the center, which would feature historical exhibits expressing the worldwide struggle for freedom, would detract from the Sept. 11 themes and provide a possible forum for anti-U.S. messages.

``Today there remains too much opposition, too much controversy, over the programming of the IFC and we must move forward with our first priority, the creation of an inspiring memorial to pay tribute to our lost loved ones and tell their stories to the world,'' Pataki said in a prepared statement.

``I am directing the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to work with the IFC to explore other locations for the center,'' the governor said.

Reaction from Take Back The Memorial, started by blogger Robert Shurbet, who was inspired by Burlingame, is here.

Reaction from 9/11 Families for a Safe and Secure America will be here.

What's more than a bit disturbing to me is that it took Hillary Clinton's announced opposition to the IFC before Rudy Giuliani and Gov Pataki finally drove the final (we hope) nail into the Ground Zero guilt complex. But better late than never.

Biggest losers: Tom Bernstein, Rich Tofel, and the shameless editorial writers at the NYTimes who had the gall to call critics of the IFC "un-American."