The Florida Masochist: The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winners are the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund and its President, Clifford Stanley. They get the award for the following.

In the six years since, the Minnesota-based charity, which launched its "Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund" days after the terror attacks, has doled out only $19 million in college aid to 731 recipients.

But the fund is sitting on $133 million as donations continue to flow in and the money is invested.

Yet the charity has refused or slashed aid to families that earn interest from their 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund payments, saying that's taxable income that reduces their need.

The fund says its goal is to distribute all the money to 9/11 victims by the year 2030 - but will use leftover funds as it pleases for other college scholarships that are not 9/11-related.

Such policies trouble not just 9/11 families, but Clinton, who is seriously disturbed by the way the fund has operated.

"He's adamantly against - and was never informed about or approved - the policy that interest earned from the Victim Compensation Fund be counted against the scholarships," spokesman Ben Yarrow told The Post said Friday from Clinton's Harlem office.

That policy "unfairly penalizes . . . people who tragically lost their loved ones" on 9/11, Clinton believes.

"Many ordinary Americans responded to Sen. Dole's and President Clinton's fund-raising appeal based on their desire to help the families of 9/11 victims," Clinton's chief of staff, Laura Graham, wrote to the charity Thursday in a letter shared with The Post.

Clinton also wants to eliminate the charity's decision to keep 9/11 money it doesn't give to victims. He calls that a "potentially serious conflict of interest."

Dole told the Post he was unaware of the problems but said, "If there's any mismanagement or something wrong with the policies, I'd want to look into it."

Scholarship America's president, Clifford Stanley, is paid more than $250,000 a year, plus benefits.

Read the entire New York Post expose. It looks like alot of people have been had. Six years have passed since 9-11, more than a small trickle of money should have been distributed by now. The fund not pleased with the Post article, answered back.

The story in the New York Post on September 9, 2007 contained several inaccuracies, innuendoes, and mischaracterizations of the Families of Freedom scholarship fund, managed by Scholarship America. But the main error is in mischaracterizing the fund itself and its mission.

Who to believe? A corportation or charity with serious charges being made against it, will spring to its defense. That goes for both the guilty and the innocent. I think the fact that only approximately 20 million has been doled out, where as over 130 million has been collected, speaks loud and clear. Mr. Stanley and his minions have a stake in dragging this out, for otherwise they'd have to find more honest work.

Don Surber wrote-

Seems like someone found a way to milk the 9/11 tragedy. I’m sure this organization follows all the rules. But it has been 6 years. Surely all the children from 9/11 have been identified by now. Why not just distribute the money and sunset the fund? That way kids who are not college-bound could benefit. Among the survivors, there are bound to be a severely handicapped child or two who could use the money.