I've been reading with some interest the various plans for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, without, before now, really having much of a feeling that I had a dog in this hunt. I do know that the plans I've seen have left me pretty lukecold. I was sorta tending toward the stick-it-in-yer-eye, build-it-back-bigger-and-better-than-before school of thought, when, like a flash from the Divine, the One True Solution smacked me like I was Saul heading for Damascus...

We need to mark the site with a reminder to future generations of what happened, and why.

I think a 75 story statue of William Jefferson Clinton anchored firmly at Ground Zero is exactly what we need. It will probably cost less than the presidential library WJC currently envisions, and the base around the statue can serve as a repository for his papers and such. Multimedia kiosks can show video clips of his repeated oaths to track the Al Qaida down after their repeated attacks on US citizens and property here and abroad, along with the documented accounts of Clinton letting Osama slip away.

This feature alone would ensure that no taxpayer funds need be used on the project, as I am certain that the money for this work would be easily raised by private donations, most likely within hours of the announcement of the design.

In another building, visitors will be able to see multimedia presentations of our upcoming war with Iraq, along with those of our first onem a multimedia history of the victory.

Other displays, some of which will be better left for only adults to access, will have clips of such things as the raw video footage of the doomed folk jumping out of the WTC, the Daniel Pearl execution video, and assuming we can ever pry it loose from the government, the audio tapes of the heroes of Flight 93 taking the hijackers down.

Lest We Forget.

Crouched around him will be smaller statues, maybe only 20 or 30 stories high, of Bush 41, who left the job undone, and Colin Powell, the man most responsible for 41's decision to do so. Minor figures, only few stories high, will be the reporters and politicians that put pressure on the senior Bush administration to call off Gulf War I at the exact point of victory. Smaller, merely life-size, statues of the Congressional members that voted against the war will round out the Pantheon of Shame.

Surrounding them all will be a black Viet Nam Memorial styled wall of stone, with the names of all the dead from the WTC, the Cole, and the other terrorist attacks, along with those that have already died, and those that inevitably will, in the coming war to send Saddam and the rest of the Islamofascists to go see Allah. Let each of these dead have a small alcove in the wall with pictures, letters, video clips, and other personal momentos designed to impart to the mind of the visitor the unique personality of each individual.

Atop the encircling wall, at intervals, let there be larger-than-life statues of the special heroes of the conflict - the men of the NYFD and the NYPD, and men like Todd Beamer, one of the men that defeated the terrorists in the first victory of this war, the Battle of Flight 93, whose last words we know of, "Let's Roll," should become the official motto of this coming conflict, to be proudly worn by every single man and woman in uniform. They will be joined in glory and veneration by those whose names we do not yet know, whose heroism is yet to be revealed in the coming months, whose heroism will as surely come to light as day follows night.

The layout itself will be fitting - out on the periphery, manning the barricades, as it were, shedding the blood, are the pawns, both the victims of, and the victors in, the war to liberate the Middle East, while in the center, ultimately untouched, defended by them, will be the knighted fools that made their deaths both heroic and tragic, necessary and inevitable.

The citizens of all America will forever be reminded of not only the valiant, and the innocent dead, but also of the folly of choosing leaders that choose unwisely, requiring once again that the tree of liberty be refreshed by the blood of patriots.

That would be the memorial I would design.

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