{"id":7234,"date":"2006-04-25T12:27:11","date_gmt":"2006-04-25T16:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7234"},"modified":"2006-04-25T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2006-04-25T16:27:11","slug":"republican-lawmaker-blocks-flight-93-memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/republican-lawmaker-blocks-flight-93-memorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican lawmaker blocks Flight 93 memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there’s any<\/i> political wisdom in this<\/a>, I can’t find it.<\/p>\n

For emotional wallop, there are few rivals to the windswept, grassy field outside of Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines [tag]Flight 93[\/tag] crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

But for three years, that field has made do with a makeshift monument while one member of Congress, Rep. [tag]Charles H. Taylor[\/tag] (R-N.C.), has blocked a $10 million request to buy the land for a permanent memorial to the 40 passengers and crew members who overpowered hijackers bent on crashing their jet into the Capitol or the White House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And why is [tag]Taylor[\/tag] opposed to the memorial? Because, on principle, Taylor believes the government should not spend tax dollars to buy more public land.<\/p>\n

Taylor is sticking to this position, but he’s not exactly proud of it. As the WaPo reported<\/a>, “Neither Taylor nor his press secretary returned phone calls and e-mails yesterday. His chief of staff, Sean Dalton, would not comment.”<\/p>\n

If Taylor has some unyielding standards about private-land ownership, that’s up to him. But it’s foolish to deny the political implications here. If a Democrat stood in the way of a 9\/11 memorial, Republicans would be apoplectic. But in this case, a Republican is doing it, in a district and state that he doesn’t even represent.<\/p>\n

Call it a hunch, but I predict that Taylor will, probably before the end of the day, suddenly decide that this memorial is a great idea after all. A few factors might help drive the change of heart:
\n
\n* This story about him blocking the money was on the front page of the Washington Post, and resisting a 9\/11 memorial is not the kind of election-year publicity members want;<\/p>\n

* Everyone else in DC, including the president, wants this memorial;<\/p>\n

* There’s no way Taylor will want to be known as the guy who blocked this memorial and<\/i> the guy who helped Jack Abramoff<\/a>;<\/p>\n

* And he’s facing a well-financed Democratic challenger (and former pro quarterback) in November.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there’s any political wisdom in this, I can’t find it. For emotional wallop, there are few rivals to the windswept, grassy field outside of Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines [tag]Flight 93[\/tag] crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. But for three years, that field has made do with a makeshift monument while one member of Congress, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}