Governor Pataki has put a stop to the America-bashing International Freedom Center, and in today’s New York Times the IFC reacts by announcing that they’re going out of business: Governor Bars Freedom Center at Ground Zero. (Hat tip: NC.)

But 42 minutes later, the center said in its own statement that there was no other location to explore, since the memorial quadrant was “the site for which the I.F.C. was created, at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s request, and as an integral part of Daniel Libeskind’s master site plan.”

“We do not believe there is a viable alternative place for the I.F.C. at the World Trade Center site,” said the statement from the center’s executives, Tom A. Bernstein, Peter W. Kunhardt and Richard J. Tofel. “We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end.”

This seems to be a clear admission that their goal was to exploit Ground Zero; if not, why couldn’t they simply relocate?