One I Missed

In doing my overview of how various blogs treated the fifth year anniversary, I missed one of the best. It comes from a non-political blog, which is perhaps why I overlooked it that day. It is smart, funny, moving, and oh, so true.

From Liam McEneaney:

HAPPY SEPTEMBER 11TH EVERYBODY!

I was watching Meet the Press Sunday morning, and Tim Russert was interviewing Dick Cheney, and to give Russert full credit, he was not letting Cheney slide. In fact, Russert might be the only person in the press who I've seen interview Bush and Cheney and not give them softballs or easy questions. And I think that the reason he can get away with it is that the core constituency that Bush and Cheney should be afraid to alienate are not spending their Sunday mornings watching Meet the Press.

I have to say that watching Cheney cemented exactly the thing I admire most about him. I'd tried to figure it out for years, and it became crystal clear: He is not afraid to be what he is; an openly evil puppetmaster pulling the strings. I used to watch Disney cartoons, wondering why no one suspected the main villain was up to no good, what with their wearing dark capes, laughing maniacally at the slightest provocation, and singing songs about how much better life would be once the hero was dead and the world was under their thumb.

In fact, if I was going to make a movie about a bent, twisted villain super-genius bent on world conquest, I would cast Cheney in a heartbeat. You know, like the kind of man who shoots his friend in the face and gets the victim to issue a public apology for embarrassing him. The kind of man who could watch the biggest terrorist attack on US soil in history, and immediately start the wheels spinning, figuring how to turn that into an excuse to attack Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with it.

And the fact that he makes no bones about who he is is the masterstroke. If he had any kind of positive charisma, he would be the most dangerous man in America, if not the world. Instead, he's a cantankerous, contemptuous cesspit of sarcasm and bilious spittle who can go on a show like Meet the Press and be confronted with his lies, and not only show no remorse, but lie about the fact that he had lied, denying it with the fervor of a six year-old, with his hand in the cookie jar, denying that he was trying to eat a cookie.

At one point, Russert showed videotape of Cheney lying which Cheney had just lied about not having done, and Cheney immediately started adding a third lie to the mix about how the first two lies were invalid.

Cheney's at the point where I would immediately suspect him, even if he said something I wholeheartedly agreed with. If Dick Cheney went on national television and said, "The President and I are firmly against baby-eating," my first thought would be, "What's he hiding on the baby-eating issue? Do babies really taste like chocolate? Are they an alternative energy source?"

Sorry, I really try to keep politics off of this blog, but I've been surprised at how depressed I've been this whole weekend leading up to the fifth anniversary of September 11th, and to see this smug arrogant piece of left-over Nixon White House garbage telling me that his underlings hadn't spent a lot of time linking Saddam hussein to the falling of the World Trade Center makes me as sick as their use of the September 11th tragedy as political currency in the first place.

It's like the murderer who uses his lousy childhood as an excuse for his crimes. Ugh. Sometimes I expect Cheney to turn into a bat and scream, "SO LONG FOOLS! NOW I SHALL FEED ON THE BLOOD OF VIRGINS!" as he flaps off into the sunrise.

My point is, if you disagree with me, good. Please persuade me that I live in a world where the Bush administration's actions over the last five years are rational, well-reasoned, and ethical. That thousands of young Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis didn't die in vain. That global warming is a myth, that the economy is rebounding, that the evidence of my senses are completely wrong.

In other words, I need to get laid. Okay, I get it.

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9/11/06

From Firedoglake -- How Did We Get from 9/11 to Iraq?:



From Dependable Renegade, Up on the Roof:

On September 11, 2001, I was sitting in my apartment on the border of Chelsea and Greenwich Village, reading my email before going out for a run down to Battery Park. I was in the middle of returning a message when I heard the scream of plane engines overhead. As a New Yorker, you tend to tune out most of the sounds of the city, but this was so loud and so close that I thought, "this can't be good." (more)

Shakespeare's Sister:

I've been sitting here thinking exactly what to say about the five-year anniversary of 9/11, and I realized there's nothing I could say about how I'm really feeling that wouldn't be crass. The truth is, I'm angry. I'm angry that it happened, I'm angry about the immediate response, I'm angry about the long-term response, both domestically and abroad, I'm angry that there are people who would happily do the same thing again, and I'm angry that my feelings make me, in the eyes of the administration, an abettor of terrorism. I've been angry every single day for the last five years, and today is no different.

And that's really all I can say.

Remembering the Trifecta, at The Agonist, who dug up an older story to remind us all:

. . . . Professional stand-up comedians know that Sept. 11 jokes are radioactive. Not even the bravest have tried to turn the deaths of some 3,000 people into a laughing matter. But President Bush has forged ahead anyway. Bush has now been telling the same, spectacularly tasteless joke to a variety of mostly Republican audiences as part of his stock stump speech . . . .Bush appears to give "trifecta" a sort of rueful, ironic meaning. But therein also lies the morbid edge: After all, Bush -- who in the weeks preceding the tragedy faced mounting questions about his ability as well as his legitimacy, all of which vanished afterward -- is possibly the only American for whom Sept. 11 was indeed a stroke of incredible good fortune. However, the real problem with the joke is that it is a complete falsehood. (read it all)

Joe Bagent on Madmen and Sedatives:

. . . . Some days however, change does seem to be afoot, as it certainly must be, given that change is the world's only constant. A majority of Americas now disapprove of the war in Iraq. Just three years ago when I started writing from this town's taverns and churches, working people therein absolutely loved George Bush. Now they have returned to their normal state of political apathy, seldom speaking of Bush, but with one difference -- they no longer approve of his war, and express disapproval generally in the form of grumbling. They grumble because television has given them permission to do so, through its constant touting of polling results expressing "dissatisfaction" with the war. Being "dissatisfied" with something, a war in this case, is more in accordance with their programming as consumers, not citizens. They will never get permission to be really pissed off, much less pissed off enough to burn anything down. . . . (experience the whole thing)

Firestarter5 says it with a bumpersticker (which Blogger will not let me upload at the moment), and Blue Wren in verse.

John Micek on where he was, and where we have gone since then:

. . . .But there in the sadness and the silence, we vividly remember thinking that there was a quiet hope -- that this might finally be the opportunity for us to get it together as a species and transcend the petty (and ultimately meaningless) differences that separate us.

Of course, there were those who felt otherwise -- as we've since seen.
And this morning, we wake to a nation -- and a world -- that's as polarized as it's ever been.

We use artificial labels (gay/straight, liberal/conservative, Christian/non-Christian, Republican/Democrat, legal immigrant/illegal immigrant) to define ourselves away from others, instead of recognizing all that we share -- notably, common DNA, our hope in our children, and, of course, the fact that we're all stuck on this rock whether we want to be or not.

So, instead of remembering the sadness of that day this morning, we're instead going to remember the hope we felt in the quiet that came after it, and the opportunity we had to finally get things right.

And we will pray that we somehow find our way back to it.

Because if we don't, then those deaths will have truly been in vain. . . . (there's more)

Ol' Froth wonders, as do we all, Where's Osama?

The Rittenhouse Review on why their phones will go unanswered today:

I tire now of those who want me, and us, to remember where we where then. I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter where I was then, and the same holds for the vast majority of us. Look, if you weren't in the World Trade Center -- trying to get the hell out -- or in the Pentagon or on one of the planes that crashed, or were one of the first/second/third responders to those sites, or you lost your spouse/partner/parent/child there, really, what difference does it make where we were? You lost, I lost, they lost. Most important: They -- the They, they -- lost. They are dead. (Read it all)

PSoTD on The Saddest Day of the Year:

We mourn the loss of so many innocent souls on September 11. But as time goes on, it feels like we're mourning the loss of our country's health as well. We shouldn't accept it as permanent. We have to find a way to get better as a nation. What we're doing is not working. After five years, we have to start trying some new strategies. And in order to do that, we have to accept new leaders. Our nation, more than anything, needs hope again. Today it seems that hope is flickering, an old candle greatly in need of replacement. We need hope that shines brightly like a roaring bonfire, beckoning all to warm themselves at the edge. We need leaders that can inspire such hope. (There's more)

Bernie simply suggests that we Google "failure". As do I.

I Live in Delaware County suggests viewing "9/11: Press for Truth". As do I.

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Our Luck Has Run Out

On September 12, 2001, the world was with us. Even Iran and Qaddafi were extending offers of assistance. Our long-time friends, like France, were ready to follow us into Hell if that would help. The Bush Administration's ham-handed manipulation and cement-headed diplomacy quickly turned most of the world from our blood compatriots into, at best, disgusted neutrals, and at worst, active antagonists. Whether through ineptitude, stupidity, or malice, the Bush Administration failed to address the real causes of the terrorist attacks five years ago. Instead, these frat-boys with too-powerful toys scratched their balls, beat their chests, and declared freedom the enemy of the terrorists. Dutifully, they set to work to dismantle that freedom, presumably to reduce the target.

But, let's go back twenty-four hours.

President Bush has just spent the night at an exclusive resort in Florida. Surface-to-air missiles are on the roof of the resort. Shortly after 6 am, a van with four men said to be of Middle Eastern descent arrives at the resort, claiming to have arranged an interview with Bush. They are turned away.

According to the 9-11 Commission Report, at 8:32, a flight attendant uses an Airphone to contact American Airlines and report that Flight 11 has been hijacked. The conversation lasts for 12 minutes. Among the details she provides are that the hijackers appear to be of Middle East descent, have stormed the cockpit and that it appears that the pilots are no longer flying the plane. She says that they have a bomb, have stabbed two other attendants and killed one passenger.

At 8:35 am, Bush leaves the resort for a twenty minute ride to an elementary school for a Photo Op. Two minutes later, according to the Commission Report, NORAD is notified that Flight 11 has been hijacked and has turned towards NYC; the FAA requests that fighter jets be scrambled.

At 8:46 Flight 11 hits WTC Tower 1. Accounts are conflicting over when Bush was finally told. Some have him being told while on his limo ride, others immediately upon his arrival at the school at 8:55. He has said (several times) that he saw the video of the first plan hitting the tower on a TV right before he entered the classroom. This is untrue as the first video was not aired until late that evening. In any event, everyone agrees that Bush was told that the plane had struck the tower before he went into the classroom. What else Bush was told is the subject of varying reports.

At about 9:01, Cheney turned on the television to watch the coverage of the first plane strike when, at 9:03 he witnessed the second strike. At 9:05, Andrew Card told the President “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” (Most of this narrative is taken from the Commission Report, which you can search here.) What happened next deserves to be seen in it's painful entirety.

Very soon after the first attack, I had received a call from a friend who told me to put on CNN. I did and called the rest of the office into the conference room -- many of us had long contacts with NYC and knew people in the Towers and the area. We all witnessed the second plane hit. Before the President picked up "My Pet Goat" we were on the phone to friends and relatives in the area and had a discussion about the likely sources of the attack. By the time that the President was talking to the students at a podium in the school, we had closed the office for the day, cancelled appointments, and sent everyone home to be with their families and in touch with loved ones and friends in New York. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a cousin's son was at that moment climbing the stairs in Tower 1, a NYC firefighter off that day, he reported to the scene without being called. He was never seen again.

All the while, my President stood stock still at 9 am. Then he scurried around the country, hiding and occasionally peeking out from under his covers.

Five years later, our long-standing alliances are shaken and bent, the potential for new alliances is broken, our vulnerability to terrorist attack is unchanged, the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission (itself resisted by Bush) are all but ignored, and our civil liberties under attack by our own Government.

Imagine where we could be today had we had a real leader, a person of vision and history, leading an executive branch of talent and expertise. Over the course of our history, we have been fortunate to have such people at the fore exactly when we needed them -- Franklin, Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. Our luck has run out.

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