September 11, 2003
Posted at 3:31 PM, Pacific
hughhewitt.com
The variety of reactions to the second anniversary of the attack on America isn't surprising, but much of it is disappointing, none more so than Joshua Micah Marshall's reflection talkingpointsmemo.com that he didn't feel continuity with his admiration for the President from two years ago, but rather "the jarring contrast, the cheap, obvious lies, the hubris, the tough talk for low ends, not so much the mistakes as the tawdriness of so much of what's happened, especially over the last eighteen months. Fred Kaplan has an excellent piece in Slate this week about the missed opportunity of September 12th. 'By the summer of 2003,' writes Kaplan, 'it could fairly be said that most of the world hated the United States, or at least feared the current U.S. government.' That sounds like such an extreme, over-the-top statement. 'Hate' is a pretty subjective word. But it's hard to read the papers regularly and not realize that what Kaplan says is true. It's sickening."
This sentiment is itself repulsive, and decency might have obliged Marshall to stay his partisanship at least until the anniversary passed. The attacks of two years ago and the attacks of the coming years --they are inevitable-- could not have been prevented by a greater display of rhetorical or real concern for the oppressed of the world, or a greater attention to European or Third World opinion. The terrorists attacked the United States then and will do so again regardless of who occupies the White House or whether Democrats are attacking in-power Republicans or Republicans are attacking in-power Democrats. All that matters is whether the country is defending itself against the evil forces sworn to kill Americans in as large a number as possible.
President Bush has been attacking those enemies, and those enemies and the friends of those enemies and the timid and the politically disadvantaged are all angry with the President. Joshua is among the last group, and I suspect he sees clearly that his party will not be trusted with the nation's security for many, many years to come, and that is the source of great bitterness. He dresses that bitterness up in a concern for the world's opinion of us. Perhaps in addition to the bitterness he really does care what the Germans and the French think. I don't. Nor do I think it is good strategy to care, and I know it is terrible politics to worry more about the opinion of the world than the safety of the country.
Here are the two questions that matter: Have we avenged the dead and are the living more safe than they were two years ago? I refer those living in America, by the way, which is my priority, and the priority of the vast majority of American voters.
The far better reads, and the ones that speak to the large majority of Americans are not like the small-beer partisan sniping of Josh, but the history-based and on-target summing up of Victor Davis Hanson nationalreview.com and the purpose-and-reality filled essay of Lileks lileks.com. Read these three pieces together and you cannot help but feel sorry for Marshall and those who share his views. They are genuinely divorced from American opinion and American thinking. Citizens, yes, and patriotic in their way, but clueless and not likely to ever be other than clueless. If you cannot understand 9/11, then what can you understand? Nothing that matters, I think, and very little besides. |
