Posted by
Sean Engmann on Thursday, September 11, 2008 4:40:09 PM
Today is the 7th anniversary of that terrible day in 2001 when our world changed. I will never forget where I was and how I felt that day, how helpless and angry I felt. The months after we had a reawakening in this country, people rallied around the flag and President Bush and we put America first. In our weakest hour, I felt the strongest pride in our country and knew that the events of 9/11 would never be forgotten, and that our resolve and unity would never weaken.
Today, 9/11 has, in many respects, turned into a distant memory. Most Americans have gone on and many have forgotten the tragic events of that day, many blindly faithful that it was a blip, and that the events could be ignored in the context of American politics. The Democratic Convention went to great pains to avoid mentioning September 11th and the ongoing threat of terrorism. Instead, many on the left complain about the rights of the terrorists captured on the battlefield, ignoring the fact that Islamic terrorists are hell bent on destroying us.
The left, as evidenced by
Keith Olbermann's disgraceful rant yesterday on MSNBC, doesn't get it. The think that conservatives are using 9/11, or "9/11 TM" as Olbermann put it, as a brand to elect Republicans. This has never been about branding, it is about which, party and what set of policies will better protect us from a future attack, and punish those responsible for 9/11. The GOP wants to stay on offense, and provide authorities the tools to thwart future terror attacks, like it did with the London bombing plot and the foiled Brooklyn Bridge bombing plan. The left is more concerned with being politically correct, not profiling, applying Constitutional protections to enemy combatants, and being reactive. In other words, pretending that 9/11 never happened.
I live in San Francisco and work in Berkeley, and today on my way to work, I had to deal with protestors on freeways, claiming 9/11 was an inside job and demanding Bush's impeachment. I ask, who's being more hateful? Who's using 9/11 as a political football? Who's disrespecting the victims of 9/11? I submit that it's not conservatives, who invoke the memory of that tragic day to ensure we continue to pursue policies to ensure that 9/11 never happens again, but liberals, like Olbermann and the protestors, who are using the anniversary of that solemn day to personally attack President Bush and John McCain, and who'd much prefer to pretend that the day never happened.