I might defend the NYT and other news outlets if they chose to end the practice. I don't like terrorists squatting on the calendar, forcing us into darkness every 365 days. We must honor the dead? But if we truly ordered our life around honoring the dead, every day of the year would be a somber day of commemoration. Instead, we have a scattering of death days on the American calendar. Why those and not others? What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?To the "Paper of Record," home to the terror attack that killed 3,000 Americans, apparently September 11 is just another day. pic.twitter.com/IBd6d3ZWxH
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) September 11, 2022
Mr. Biden also marked the anniversary by encouraging Americans to defend the nation’s democratic system, turning again to a message that the country’s institutions are under threat by forces of domestic extremism.
“It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s something we have to do every single day. So this is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and resolve for each and every American.”
Oh, my! It's like his blood-red, soul-of-America speech — the threat to democracy from the enemy within. 9/11 has become an occasion for calling out "domestic extremism"?!
But did Biden mention domestic extremism or is that something the NYT inserted? That Biden quote says stand up for democracy, but doesn't cite domestic extremism.
Let's check the full text of the speech. The part about democracy is at the end (and I'll boldface the part the NYT quoted):
We have an obligation, a duty, a responsibility to defend, preserve, and protect our democracy, the very democracy that guarantees the rights and freedom that those terrorists on 9/11 sought to bury in the burning fire and smoke and ash.
And that takes a commitment on the part of all of us — dedication, hard work — every day.
For always remember: The American democracy depends on the habits of the heart of “We the People.” That’s how our Constitution — “We the People.” The habits of heart of “We the People.”
It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then. It’s something we have to do every single day.
So this is a day not only to remember but a day of renewal and resolve for each and every American, in our devotion to this country, to the principles it embodies, to our democracy.
That is who [what] we owe those who remember today. That is what we owe one another. And that is what we owe future generations of Americans to come.
I have no doubt we will do this. We will meet this significant responsibility. We’ll secure our democracy together as one America, the United States of America. That’s who we are. That’s who your loved ones were and why they gave so much.
Wow! So it was the NYT that inserted domestic extremism and not Biden at all!
Perhaps Biden would like to back off from his demonization of millions of Americans, but the NYT is making it more difficult for him. Do you see in that text the implication that he's attacking domestic extremists?
Could we say that the NYT is actually not prioritizing the interests of the Democratic Party in the next election but holding Biden responsible for what he'd said in his earlier speech and not allowing him to sanitize the abstraction of "democracy" so soon after he framed it so concretely against "MAGA Republicans"?
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You can make the case that we shouldn't set aside a day to particularly honor some cause (in this case, the victims of the 9/11 massacre), but setting aside a day is something our culture does. Choosing not to do participate is making a statement. To try to quietly slip one by still makes a statement, just a more cowardly one.
Could we say that the NYT is actually not prioritizing the interests of the Democratic Party in the next election, but holding Biden responsible for what he'd said in his earlier speech
Sure, if there were some reason to think that the NYT opposes demonizing Republicans--but there is no evidence to support that position. Far more likely, the Times is simply ham-fisted in its propagandizing for the Democrats.
By now "secure our democracy" is a dog whistle to Trump haters and the woke. Supposedly only Trump and people who like him are a threat. The people writing Biden's speeches might not have made up their minds whether they have to choose between enumerated rights and unenumerated ones, but given their determination to crack down on people they regard as the dangerous right, one can guess how this is going to go.
“… What the NYT actually did wasn't nothing. It was to report on what happened on September 11, 2022. That is, the news. Not the more distant past.”
Fair point. Newspapers are supposed to be about news.
On the other hand, newspapers violate this rule all the time. Once you get off the front page (and even there) you get “news” laced with “context” and built from comparisons and allusions to past events. How can the “news” be understood at all —except by pointing to the “old news” and noting similarities and differences?
And when it comes to violating the rule, I submit that the NYT is pretty inconsistent. It has time and room a-plenty to remember other events of far less magnitude. But maybe its remaining readership is OK with this kind of selective memory-holing. Leave the memorials in the fields of Shankstown. Those of us who care, will not forget.
Oh absolutely I agree it's horrific how these libtards use the tragic events of 9/11 to further their own political ambitions. Thanks to Jesus h Christ that Donald J Trump is helping to promote peace and understanding with the Saudi Arabian perpetrators of 9/11 by promoting their new professional golf tour.
Do you see in that text the implication that he's attacking domestic extremists?
Could we say that the NYT is actually not prioritizing the interests of the Democratic Party in the next election but holding Biden responsible for what he'd said in his earlier speech and not allowing him to sanitize the abstraction of "democracy" so soon after he framed it so concretely against "MAGA Republicans"?
You are really reaching Ann.
Biden sent out his marching orders.
The democrat party is going to "Secure our democracy."
He already framed who the enemy was in his vicious fascist speech in Philadelphia. The entire Regime establishment knows who the enemy is. He can't say it out loud but the FBI is already cracking down and raiding the homes of Trump supporters.
In past elections you have decided to ignore the obvious evil and criminality of the democrat party because of your emotional attachment to the democrat party.
But if you actually practice "Cruel Neutrality" you will notice that the actions of the Regime show no walk back of his demonization at all.
Do you see in that text the implication that he's attacking domestic extremists?
Oh hell yes!
If we're not involved in an active war, exactly who are we securing our democracy (TM) against, if not an internal threat?
This may not be an effective strategy but the Democrats are doing to double- and triple- down on this before 8 November, with or without help from the NYT. They've got nothing else to run on.
Mr. Biden also marked the anniversary by encouraging Americans to defend the nation’s democratic system.
I would like to echo Mr. Biden's call to defend Democracy today by reminding American citizens that Mr. Biden actively stole the election in 2020 and is the very threat to Democracy that he is talking about.
He and persons he bribed committed vote fraud in the early hours the day after the election to fraudulently escalate his actual vote count. This occurred in selected precincts previously planned and infiltrated by his campaign.
Joseph Biden is a clear and present danger to the future of Democracy in the United States and every day he continues masquerading as our legitimately elected president, Democracy suffers.
When Republicans take over the House of Representatives in 3 months, they have a duty to remove this man from the White House - by force if necessary - and to round up and imprison every co-conspirator who worked to fraudulently place him there.
If he is left remaining to finish out his term, we will all know that Democracy in the United States is actually dead and we can dispense with trying to further defend it and find new guards for the defense of ourselves and our posterity.
9/11? is that back when, "Some People Did Something" ??
I forgot about my own resolution, not to work on 9/11, and went out and drove to pick up bonuses offered by a ride share.
Bottom line, I didn't know anybody who died that terrible day.
Omar had said she was "tired" of being treated as a "second-class" American because she was Muslim.
"For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen, and frankly I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," Omar said. "CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."
If True Believers are denied the opportunity to murder infidels, those True Believers will NOT make it to paradise. Muslims MUST murder and kill ALL infidels.. It's Islamophobic to deny this
Well it was all over the other media yesterday and it we as bloody awful, as it's too smoky to be outside for very long.
Enough already.
How long did papers run commemorative stories on December 7, 1941?
You see what's happened? Their reputation has sunk so low, gotten so bad, that now we're trying to reason with ourselves why they didn't just do something wrong - again.
The NYT's judgment here was defensible. These annual commemorative stories have a propaganda flavor. I just wish the NYT were more consistent in declining to publish propaganda.
Does 9/11 draw too much attention to Biden's sloppy evacuation of Afghanistan? What was all the fighting worth? The first step of a pivot is to stop talking about a topic. No more middle east. No more COVID.
Furthermore, media tends to focus on the last major 'war' regardless of the era. They mentioned Pearl Harbor annually for many decades until living memories (mostly) died out. "A date which will live in infamy."
They mentioned Watergate and the fall of Nixon for close to 20 years too. So now we have the -gate suffix for all political scandals.
Yeah. If we memorialized the dead, all of them whether or not 9-11 related, all the time, we'd be busy. But we all have some; a relation/friend died on this day so and so many years ago. Brother born on that day, so and so many years ago and the day he died..... But that's not going to take up our entire year.
WRT 9-11, it's the attack. The extent of the attack is measured in dead, not in tons of rubble or economic activity lost.
We remember the attack, for its enormous destructiveness, for the message it sent about how the world really is, and for the dead. But the dead, in their number, are the primary metric. Everything else is understood, or not, agreed to or not.
Had, in some fashion, the attacks had been on various facilities completely uninhabited at that moment and none dead....they'd still have told us a lot. But without the masses of dead, the putatively uniform response to it would be missing.
I have been to enough military funerals with honors for relatives and friends that I cannot manage another one, even for someone I've never heard of. This doesn't mean I don't think of the causes and circumstances of his death, and do so more or less analytically.
I wonder if the Times ran Pearl Harbor stories in the 60s. That would be a useful comparison.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about 9, and even whether, to teach my juniors about 9-11. They were born after the event, and it is approaching the time we let it slip into history.
I'm going to cover it today, and focus on the Americans on Flight 93 and how they handled their situation.
It was similar with the JFK assassination. After 15 or 20 years, the date passes without much acknowledgement. It's hard on people who lost someone, but time marches on and people forget.
I wonder what China would have done if hit with a 9/11 style attack? Or how about the Japanese doing a Pearl Harbor on Moscow instead?
Jan 6th is the new 9/11. Some are calling Trump voters "American Taliban" now.
At bottom, Trump support is grounded in anti-corruption, rule of law and equality before the law principles, principles our moral and intellectual superiors have abandoned as archaic and unworkable and destructive of the natural order of things.
its ok though. Joe has now tied together Sept 11 and Jan 6. They are now one in the same. Adam Kinzinger cried.
"Wow! So it was the NYT that inserted domestic extremism and not Biden at all!"
Irrelevant.
The NYT works for the New Soviet Democratical Party and advances the Party narrative at all times at all costs.
Having the NYT do the dems bidding without the dems having to tell them is what marks the NYT as a good apparatchik organization.
They needed the page space to crap all over the Jews.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/09/ny-times-hit-piece-on-hasidic-education-published-on-eve-of-ny-regents-vote-to-undermine-all-religious-schools/
They should do a retrospective of the NYT editorial choices that went into giving Bill Ayers half a page that morning to write about his love of bombing and how he wished he had planted more bombs, especially now that we have proof that he was dining several times a week with future President Barack and Michelle Obama, before, during, and after that time and had been doing so for several years, a fact Obama and Michelle have repeatedly lied about in interviews, debates, and memoirs.
Some journalist with a backbone should ask both Obamas what they knew about the editorial, how many times the families ate together, including times with Michelle's mother, and who else knew. Because we've now got names or admissions from Mona Khalidi, Bernardine Dohrn, Scott Turow and others, and Stanley Fish and David Remnick know more than they will admit about being there or knowing about it too.
For how many victims, was that Times editorial the last thing they read before dying? I'd like to see some murdered cop or firefighters' loved ones demand answers.
The NYTimes is promoting Biden's narrative WITHOUT him having to do so. The NYTimes is never going to do anything to hurt the prospects of their partner Democrat Party.
As another Democrat said about 9-11,"Some people did something." Relax, move along, nothing to see here.
My cousin, a NJ resident who worked in banking and was at Ground Zero on 9/11, died this past year from leukemia. Current stories are still possible if the NYT wants to find them.
Here's to Rick Rescorla and Mychal Judge and the other heroes.
Absent Friends!
Richard Aubrey @ 8:35: "...We remember the attack, for its enormous destructiveness, for the message it sent about how the world really is, and for the dead. But the dead, in their number, are the primary metric."
Very well put. We are social creatures, we live imaginatively. It is natural (inescapable) that when something good or bad happens in a world, we measure it by guessing "if what happened to that person, were to happen to me, how would I feel?"
And in this case what those hecatombs told us about the world, and the place that we thought we held in it, was: "you are hated, you are evil, you are less than nothing, we want to exterminate you, here's just a sample of what lies in store for you."
Such messages tend to get our attention. Why would the NYT not want to remind us of them?
"Could we say that the NYT is actually not prioritizing the interests of the Democratic Party in the next election but holding Biden responsible for what he'd said in his earlier speech and not allowing him to sanitize the abstraction of "democracy" so soon after he framed it so concretely against "MAGA Republicans"?"
I think it is time to apply some Dem Party/MSM reasoning to that question.
First, Biden is responsible for what he said in his blood red speech. Biden has not backed off from or apologized for his blood red statements in any meaningful way. He says he doesn't mean all Republicans, (excepting the few who have done his bidding) but he does, doesn't he?
Second, NYT is putting a reference to "domestic extremism" because they want to deliver that to their audience, and Joe Biden is happy to have them do it. Biden could certainly change the atmosphere by apologizing for or retracting his statements. It is vile to denounce people who question the processes of a controversial and troubled election. The Democrats have raised such questions for years--every time they lose an important election.The Zuck Bucks certainly caused turmoil. George Soros has been trying to influence how the votes are counted in US elections for years.
Third, the GOP is generally accused by its opponents of sending unheard "dog whistles" to various unsavory groups. Why can't Joe Biden send "dog whistles"?
Fourth, in the context of today, the messaging is there, whether or not it is spoken. Can we say that NYT did Biden a favor by saying it for him? Republicans regularly get tarred with things they never said, but Joe Biden doesn't have to live with his vile rhetoric. NYT repeats it for him.
From the post:
"Instead, we have a scattering of death days on the American calendar. Why those and not others? What interests are served by keeping those horrendous events fresh in our mind and not others?"
The same rationale for keeping flags at half-staff for COVID victims, school shooting victims, minor players in the political realm (Madeline Albright?). I recall when flags at half-staff was a rare thing, reserved for heads of state. And at least in WI, when we lived there, it seemed like every month there was an occasion to lowering the flag. I think the fact that Trump was still in the White House had something to do with it.
Howard: "Thanks to Jesus h Christ that Donald J Trump is helping to promote peace and understanding with the Saudi Arabian perpetrators of 9/11 by promoting their new professional golf tour"
Ah yes, the Howard projection-distraction play. He has no other.
Biden's Earpiece itself (along with the biological organism carrying the earpiece known as Joe Biden) just recently flew to Saudi Arabia where the Earpiece begged and begged and begged his Saudi masters to pretty pretty please increase oil production so that the New Soviet Democraticals won't be forced to allow the horrible American Deplorables to increase US production (because the ChiComs and Putin wouldn't like that and the Earpiece always follows orders) in order to improve New Soviet Democratical electoral prospects.
If you really want to see Howard freak out, ask him how many Americans were left behind in Afghanistan as part of the New Soviet Democratical "Arm The Entire Afghan Islamic Supremacist Army Now" program. Recall that Howard said it was a handful or so. Reality: 14,000.
Also ask him if this is a Antifa-Exists week, or an Antifa-Doesn't-Exist week, since it changes frequently.
Each year, I post the names of the women and men I knew who died on 9/11 - who worked on my floor. Sometimes I include the photos used in the Portraits of Grief (or on the missing posters) from the time. My guess is that one day, I will forget to post.
I prefer straight news acknowledgments of the day rather than think pieces or commentaries.
The enemies on 9/11/2001 are no longer useful to the politicians of 9/11/2022. That's why they're making up new ones.
I mean, does Biden want ANYONE thinking about Afghanistan today?
If the NYT were writing about terrorism today, it would need to include the 50 people found crossing the border on the Terrorist Watch List.
No wonder the intense focus on domestic terrorists.
My memory of 9/11 is of the days after when volunteer firemen (firepeople?), construction workers and others from middle America got in their pickup trucks with tools and drove to the site to help with clean up and rescue services. Of course today those same people are called fascists and those pickup trucks are a sign of racism.
It reminds me of NYC and COVID, begging for medical help and then either refusing it because of the religion of the provider or taxing it as earned income from people who came to help from out of state.
My guess is NYC is on it's own from here on out.
"...live stolen from us."
Is that like "...elections stolen from us"?
There's no money to be made from 9/11 anymore.
There are no more government giveaways to democrat front groups.
The 9/11 grifters (and there were many on all sides) are done milking that cow, so the need to report on it is over.
You make a good point.
One way to adapt the coverage might be something like: “Americans observe the anniversary of 9/11”.
It isn’t forgotten but it isn’t re-lived, either.
While I mourn the 9/11 victims (a couple of whom I knew), I believe 9/11 created a terrible fracture in the American psyche, changing us from a generally risk-taking and intrepid people who did not let our dead keep us from moving further into the future to a people hiding behind a gigantic security state, taking our shoes off in the airport and tolerating endless foreign wars fought by a tiny portion of our population while we all cowered at home. I believe there is a direct and unmistakable line from 9/11 to the pusillanimous response to Covid that has damaged so many lives.
We should instead set aside 1/3 of a trimester to celebrate our special and peculiar causes: nonviable month, transgender spectrum month, people of black month, people of other month, people of albino month, chauvinist month, diversity month, human rites month, lions with pride month, and so on and so forth, and a gay detachment at happy hour and fridays.
Here is Howard freaking out.
I noticed the flags were at half-staff on Friday, and I'm thinking "QEII? Really" But no. Evers wanted to pay tribute to 9/11 victims. I'm not sure what purpose that served, but then I recall when flags were half-staff exclusively for dead Presidents.
Could we say that the NYT is actually not prioritizing the interests of the Democratic Party in the next election but holding Biden responsible for what he'd said in his earlier speech and not allowing him to sanitize the abstraction of "democracy" so soon after he framed it so concretely against "MAGA Republicans"?
Could we say that? We could, but it would be obscurantist malarkey.
Althouse: I might defend the NYT and other news outlets if they chose to end the practice. I don't like terrorists squatting on the calendar, forcing us into darkness every 365 days.
Says the blogger who did her own 9/11 post yesterday...
Local news.
“It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year or every now and then,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s something we have to do every single day."
Biden's administration has been perfectly fine with shutting down CRT, COVID vaccine, and climate change initiative critics (never mind 2020 election "deniers"), so anything he says about "standing up for democracy" is a sad joke.
More useful to remember that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", and people like Biden are serious threats to that liberty.
But as long as those people can be voted into power, whether by hook or by crook, "our democracy" is secure. Sure.
@MadisonMan,
I'm embarrassed to acknowledge I had the same shocked thought (about Elizabeth) yesterday when I saw the half-staff flags (including a half-staff McDonald's flag). And I knew it was 9/11. Crazy!
Today is the 10th anniversary of 9/12/2012 when the US ambassador and three defenders were abandoned by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss Barack Hussein Obama, to Islamic terrorists. The Africom commander, Carter Hamm, who was about to order a rescue mission in spite of orders, was instantly relieved of his command and retired. Later H Clinton said, "At this point what does it matter?"
60 Minutes, too often unwatchable, did a fine job last night focusing on the firefighters who responded to the attack. Quite moving.
Interesting how the NYT has no problem constantly reminding us that we, as nation, have many shameful events in our past that we must not only never forget, but must pay for monetarily. Moreover, and sadly, the NYT caters to, and is staffed by, many who view events like 9-11 as a well-deserved, entirely appropriate, attack.
Omar had said she was "tired" of being treated as a "second-class" American because she was Muslim.
Imagine her fatigue if she were treated as second class (even an enemy of the state) for being a conservative, white male.
Those D’s HATE us - this can’t end well
For the NYT, 9/11 is in the rear view mirror, but Emmett Till is lynched every day for eternity.
The end is nigh, apparently. Kids these days.
Our billion dollar defense forces did nothing that day but watch flight 77 crash into their headquarters.
Why commemorate our impotence?
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