Marco Rubio announced his presidential candidacy on April 13 and Naked Capitalism's Lambert Strether analyzes his speech for dog-whistle phrases, bipartisan shibboleths, equivocation, dead metaphors, "red meat for the base," and other factors. Rubio lost me with the first, inaccurate sentence:
I chose to make this announcement at the Freedom Tower because it is a symbol of our nation’s identity as the land of opportunity. And I am more confident than ever that despite our troubles, we have it within our power to make our time another American Century.
We don't call it the Freedom Tower anymore! I posted a comment to Strether's post:
April 15, 2015 at 12:48 pm
The building where Rubio made his announcement is called One World Trade Center. The “Freedom Tower” name that everyone used for years was dropped in 2009 after the building had failed to attract any tenants and the possibility loomed of a substantial lease with a Chinese real estate company. The Port Authority insisted there was no connection between the name change and prospective tenant fears of operating in a large, ostentatiously-named lightning rod for future terror attacks. The backpedaling quotes from civic leaders such as Mayor Bloomberg after the announcement were priceless. Possibly Rubio doesn’t read the New York newspapers.
See, for example, this Daily News story for more detail.
Here's what Mayor Bloomberg said:
"It's up to the Port Authority," he said. "I have no idea what the commercial aspects are, and we can say, 'Oh, we shouldn't worry about that,' but of course you have to, particularly now.
"I would like to see it stay the Freedom Tower, but it's their building, and they don't need me dumping on it. If they could rent the whole thing by changing the name, I guess they're going to do that, and they probably, from a responsible point of view, should. From a patriotic point of view, is it going to make any difference?"
There's freedom, the symbol Rubio used, and there's market freedom, which dictated the name change. Which is more valuable, as a concept?