Legal Commentary

On 9/11/01 plus seven

By Beldar

I'm resigned now to the reality that even on 9/11/01, some Americans never understood 9/11/01. For them, it's never been a question of whether, or when, they'd forget their fierce resolve that America would stand up to attacks on it. They never had that resolve. They've always blamed America; they blamed America for this. Nothing I have ever said or written, on my most eloquent day, has had a chance of penetrating their smug ignorance.

For several years after 9/11/01, however, I tried to write things on my blog designed to reach and touch those others who understood 9/11/01 when it happened and for a time thereafter, but whose memories ? and, therefore, whose resolve and world-view ? had softened since. "Maybe," I thought to myself, "my words or a particularly remarkable photo can recall them to what they once felt and thought they knew."

I'm not sure if there is anyone still in that category. Seven years after 9/11/01, we seem indeed to have become two Americas ? one for whom 9/11/01 changed everything forever, and the other for whom it didn't. Today, the two major political parties' nominees have set aside their politicking, and I do not argue that their respective supporters can be neatly divided in this same way.

To the contrary, I know and proudly claim as "friend" many Democrats, self-avowed liberals, patriots who "got" 9/11/01 and still get it, and who believe in sincere good faith that Barack Obama is the candidate best calculated to protect America and Americans in the future.

I respectfully disagree with them. There are too few demonstrated instances in which Sen. Obama has resisted the demands of the Hard Left blame-America-firsters, the MoveOn.org Democrats, the advanced-stage Bush Derangement Syndrome patients ? the people who haven't just forgotten 9/11/01, but who never, ever understood it to begin with. Only one comes to mind, in fact ? his vote on FISA reauthorization. But that itself required a flip-flop before he could strain himself to reach a manifestly correct result, and it's entirely dwarfed by the fact that he began his rise to national promise based on a platform of unilateral surrender in Iraq.

I have no confidence ? no, that's still too wishy-washy a formulation, so let me start again. I affirmatively believe and assert that Barack Obama himself is not one of those self-avowed unashamedly liberal patriots who originally "got" 9/11/01 and still get it. Rather, I believe that my friends who meet that description, and who have invested their confidence in him as someone likely to protect America and Americans in the future, have been cruelly misled by a combination of their own partisan loyalties and the glib words of a talented Chicago politician who turns his tough talk on and off like a light switch. Most of his core audience wants to remain in the dark anyway.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on September 11, 2008 (boomark / email).