An open wound left infected

[BobcatJH]

Tonight could have been different. Tonight - of all nights - should have been different. Tonight was, after all, a night falling exactly five years after one of the worst days in American history. A day whose commemoration five years on should have been anything but political. But it was. For tonight, as he has so many times before, President Bush again did what he does best - squander goodwill and blow important opportunities. He took an opportunity to unite Americans as they haven't been since that terrible day five years ago and purposely wasted it, turning another in along line of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities into yet another trip into the partisan gutter, a low-down destination both he and his party know so well. As has become a far-too-frequent occurrence, this president again came across as a small man, an unqualified man, a man unworthy of the position he was so carelessly first handed five years and eight months ago.

How shameful that this president would again turn tragedy into opportunity. Then, he used it to shift our national gaze from those who actually attacked us on September 11 to those whom he wanted to attack. Now, he used it to shift our national gaze from those feelings we all felt on and after September 11 to those both he and his party used to tear us apart in the days thereafter. Tonight, instead of leaving his mark on the office by delivering a speech for the ages, this president and his arrogant handlers - the ones to whom our pain is their gain - decided to pat themselves on the back for doing a heck of a job keeping us safe. Safer to them, yes, but not yet safe enough to even consider leaving Americans' health and well-being to, of all people, the Democrats. His unnamed opposition tonight, therefore, wasn't al Qaeda, which, since attacking us then, has gained an ominous foothold in Iraq. No, it wasn't even Osama bin Laden, the still-at-large terrorist mastermind. It was the Democratic Party. Or, more broadly, those with the utter temerity to not be afraid of their own shadows, to not accept without question the last word as delivered by this administration, to not view dissent with as much disdain as does the ruling party.

There's something criminally incompetent - no, criminally negligent - about the short shrift this president seems willing to give the task at hand. When he had the opportunity to once and for all eliminate bin Laden, this president instead sought out war with Iraq. When he had the opportunity to show leadership in the early moments of Hurricane Katrina, this president instead sought to praise an already failing political process in Iraq. And again tonight, when he had the opportunity to pay thoughtful tribute to the memory of those who died five years ago today, this president instead sought to draw connections between the attacks that affected all of us and the preemptive war that now affects his party's chances at the ballot box. The first time, the president's negligence dishonored those who died on September 11. This time, the president's negligence again dishonors those about whom tonight should have been. And instead of healing the wounds opened here five years ago today, this president tonight reaffirmed his belief that opening wounds elsewhere throughout the Middle East is a sound enough substitute for properly honoring those who died on that September day.

"America did not ask for this war," the president said, "and every American wishes it were over." No, Mr. President, America didn't ask to get attacked on September 11. Nor did her citizens ask you to turn our collective desire to see those responsible for those attacks held to account into the misguided desire by those sharing your misguided ideology to carry out a costly war of choice in Iraq, a nation shown again and again to not have any ties with those who planned or carried out the initial attacks. No, Mr. President, we did not ask for this war. We won't, however, thanks to your administration's wrong-headed post-September 11 behavior, have the luxury of asking "Why?" when the next attack reaches our shores. You've already given our enemies, those you've often likened to the most tyrannical despots our world has ever seen, all the reason they'll need. Not only due to your continued depiction of this conflict as a war between the Americans who defend freedom and the Muslims who despise it, but due also to your failure to look after your own people when they needed you most last fall.

By doing what he did tonight - making an overtly political speech on a day when only the complete opposite was appropriate - this president further shed light upon the hypocrisy that permeates his morally and intellectually confused administration. The same president who repeatedly trumpets the supposed spread of freedom there doesn't seem to share the same pride in democracy here. What good, after all, is our unique brand of freedom if we as Americans aren't allowed its trappings? When a president can turn a somber, soul-searching occasion into an opportunity to exact political revenge on an opposition whose views are now held by a majority of Americans, our society has not progressed one bit from where it was five years ago. When what happened tonight becomes second nature, we at once forget history and doom ourselves to repeating it. And when a political party can rhetorically render indistinguishable its enemies from its critics, the mirage of our freedom disappears.

Tonight, as he had shortly after the first September 11, this president had the opportunity to bring America together, to see that her so bitterly divided factions work together to heal our wounds and bring about a better tomorrow. Yet now, as in the weeks, months and years after that tragic day, this president squandered that opportunity, instead turning tragedy into political opportunity, shamefully marketing his presidency as the only thing standing between the America we love and unthinkable disaster, his party the sole stewards of our very existence. The president has been right all along; there is a threat to our American way of life, our freedom. Now, however, it comes less from the enemy without than it does the enemy within. "They," the president said tonight describing our so-called enemies, represent a "totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent." For a brief second, as my gaze shifted away from the television, I had a hard time discerning which regime - theirs or ours - he was talking about.

[savemefromdumbya]

1. If you ask me Bush hates Americans

there's no other way to describe the evil deeds that he has been involved in. Don't get me on cheney...

[BobcatJH]

6. Kanye West was only partly right

"George Bush doesn't care about _____ people."

[speedoo]

2. Great post K&R.

[uppityperson]

3. Indeed. k&r

RIP those who died in the 9/11 attacks, and I am so sorry for what has been done using your deaths as an excuse. So sorry.

[BobcatJH]

5. Here, here

I agree completely.

[RedEarth]

4. KR

[av8rdave]

8. From your sig line I gather you're from OK...just wanted to tell you

We just spent last weekend in Norman/OKC for the Washington/OU game (sorry...we were the Washington fans). I have never been so graciously treated as a visitor to any city in my life. We wound up a some OU tailgate parties (in our Washington clothes!) by invitation from the locals. Despite the outcome of the game, a great visit.

[RedEarth]

11. I appreciate the nice comments and am glad you had a good time

We planned on going to the game, however, we had some last minute changes and weren't able to make it. We tailgate with a number of other couples just south of the stadium and welcome fans from other schools each game. Again, I pleased to hear you had a good time, and who knows, this might encourage you to visit sometime in the future.

[civildisoBDence]

7. Religion is the steroid of the people

Sorry, Marx, but we're not stoned, we're in a roid rage.

Newsprism

[ninkasi]

9. He is outrageous

The pain and horror on the day 5 years ago when we saw planes fly into the WTC, found out that one had hit the Pentagon, and another brought down over a field in Pennsylvania. On that day, I stood frozen when the second plane hit. My husband and I were trying to get over the shock of the first one, then it happened again, and we knew we had to be under attack.

When I saw the desperate people jumping to certain death from those towers, all I could think of was the fear, and terror they were feeling, the prayers they must have said, the sorrow of leaving their loved ones behind, and the flash of fear for their loved ones, not knowing if they would die that day, too. I couldn't stop shaking, and couldn't stop feeling absolute sorrow at what they must be suffering.

Then there were the people on the planes which had been hijacked, and were also facing death, and realizing that the plane they would die in would also cause the deaths of many others in the buildings. There are rescue workers who gave their lives trying to save others, and who now face early, and painful death because the government didn't want to interrupt business any more than necessary. Every day of delay cost them money, and if it also caused hundreds or thousands of lives, well...sorry.

Since I have lost many loved ones, I said prayers for their families, and loved ones, knowing that they were facing an agonizing future, and how difficult it would be for the raw pain would ease enough to go on, even though a wound like that never completely heals. So yesterday, the day we give tribute to so much courage on the rescuers and victim's parts, and mourn with those who did not live through the attack, because it was their day. The cost of that day was life, health, and bloodshed. Those people own that day, and the price they paid was incalculable.

We remember, and mourn, on every Sept. 11, and always will. The fifth anniversary, though has a certain importance to it. Yesterday was a day when remembering the victims and their families should have been the only things we spoke of. The day was to honor the memory of those who lost their lives, and a day to reach out to the relatives, and friends, of those victims.

Bush took that day, the day that belonged to others, paid for in pain and death, and made it into a cheap, shabby stunt observed only to try to save his political party, and the remainder of his presidency, and cause the rest of us to become so full of fear for ourselves, that we forget the ones who died that day. The word "Iraq" had no business even being mentioned, because that isn't what we were paying respect to yesterday. Of all of the money, and liberties, and everything else that coward is now trying to take a day that belongs to the victims, most of all, and their survivors, and use it for himself. He is beneath contempt.

[illinoisprogressive]

10. 5 Wasted Years

It's sad to think how Bush used 9-11 not as a bridge to build lasting relationships with other countries and this country in particular. Instead he used it to polarize us as a country and as a people.
He used it for politics rather than become a statesman.
The problem is that he and Rove came in with a long established agenda. The congress did not care about the history, the magnificant thing a democracy and the congress is. About statemanship. They looked upon it as a way to build personal fortunes.
As a history buff I am saddened by how this era has taken shape. They use Pearl Harbor and WWII and bastardize it. I look at what this country did and became from those ashes. I look at what came of this. How we got here to begin with is for future historians to figure out with the luxury of many years hindsight. I only know this will not be our shining moment. It will be one of our most shameful.
I also wonder how different things would have been if Gore won.

[OzarkDem]

12. And New Orleans & southern Mississippi

will look the same in 4 more years, too, if the GOP stays in control.

They're corporate leaders and they see the US as just another aquisition to be stripped of fungible assets and dumped to spin off to another buyer.