"Now in a situation like this, an intelligent guy, a guy like your husband, Tina, is not what I need. I need my guy Keith here. Know what he did with that crazy guy? He BROKE HIS WRIST LIKE A TWIG."
Said Donald Trump, explaining why he had bodyguards, to Tina Brown, on September 10, 2001.
Lots more at the link, ending with this summary of 9/11, which I think is the conventional wisdom: "That single moment of terror that brought us together splintered rapidly. We’ve institutionalized distrust and suspicion; we’ve cultivated paranoia. Paradoxically, perhaps, that period of outraged unification led inevitably to the seemingly insuperable partisan divide we now find ourselves facing. Not long after 9/11, Facebook was born, then YouTube and Instagram, and, at first, it felt as if these might become community-making phenomena, safe spaces. Instead, as the iterations of social media pile up and the voices on them multiply, we live in a cacophony of chaos. Celebrity culture, far from fading, has become the only culture we know, its ultimate expression now incinerating the White House."
That's my photograph, taken in the evening, in 2007, when a low cloud kept the memorial lights from projecting upward and the light spread horizontally.
The quarter-century mark feels important — I was 50 when it happened, I'm 75 now — but I will repeat what I said in 2022: "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?"
There is always a low cloud keeping us from seeing the full picture.
"I will be coming to college campuses, many of them this year. So will we all. I am sure, because we're Americans, and we're not going to be deterred. Charlie's voice is not silent. We're going to pick up that bloodstained microphone where Charlie left it. And to those who would intimidate, who would seek to stop us, who would seek to end free discussion, who believe that they have ownership over public spaces and can violently threaten and kill people who speak freely: We are not going to stop. And I have two words: Fuck you. We will not stop telling the truth. We will never stop telling the truth. We will never stop debating and discussing. We'll never stop standing up for what America is and for what she should be. And we will never let Charlie Kirk's voice die."
Today is 9/11, and Ben's statement makes me think of the idea that if we don't continue to live as freely and fully as we had before then we will be letting the terrorists win.
"... in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.... Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died — the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.... Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it's not even close...."
Said Trump in an address from the Oval Office last night.
The headline prompts us to question Trump's basis for purporting to know what motivated the killer. Maybe we ought to wait until we learn more, and maybe the hateful rhetoric is coming from both sides, and maybe there are leftwing targets of violence. I'm imagining those on the left scurrying to prevent Trump and his allies from controlling the narrative.
I wrote that last paragraph based on the headline and drawing on my own expectations. Then I read the article and did not find what I'd thought I'd find. It is more of a straightforward description of the scene at the White House yesterday. We're told "the corridors... were quiet, as staff there absorbed news," and "Televisions affixed to walls in different rooms blared minute-to-minute coverage.... Some staff members appeared to have been crying."
The last sentence of the article makes me jerk my head to check the calendar icon in the sidebar of my computer: "The president was still on track for a visit to New York on the anniversary of the last significant event to unite nearly all Americans across parties: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."
It's a very somber day, not a day to strain to find a way to advantage your side. And yet, there is Trump in that video, forthrightly blaming the radical left. He didn't take a day or 2 off for reflection and what either is or looks like prayer. And that's a temptation to all on the left and all those pumping for Democrats to assert that the right is also responsible for the violence. Yield to that temptation and you might be the next Matthew Dowd.
See "Matthew Dowd Fired From MSNBC for Charlie Kirk Comments" (Variety). What Dowd said, probably feeling this was measured, accurate, and smart: "[Charlie Kirk] is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in."
"The 2-1 D.C. Circuit appeals court decision upheld then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to undo the plea deal approved by military lawyers and senior Pentagon staff. The deal would have carried life without parole sentences for Mohammed and two co-defendants, potentially taking capital punishment off the table.... [L]egal concerns stemmed from whether the original plea deal was legally binding and whether Austin waited too long to get it dismissed. The court found Austin indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements because the promises made in the deal had not yet been fulfilled, and the government had no adequate alternative remedies...."
GenX here. Three people I knew died in the towers, human beings just like Taylor Lorenz, who got on the subway and went to work one day and then suddenly while they were drinking their coffee they had to decide whether to jump or burn to death.
"... days before Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial.
The handoff had been in the works for about three years. An initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 was derailed by opposition from Congress. The 11 who were released included Moath al-Alwi, a former long-term hunger striker who gained attention in the art world for building model boats from objects found at the Guantánamo prison; Abdulsalam al-Hela, whose testimony was sought by defense lawyers in the U.S.S. Cole case; and Hassan Bin Attash, the younger brother of a defendant in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case...."
"... with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.... In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case.... Mr. Austin’s decision brought relief to family members of victims who had expressed anger over the deal, but it also left uncertain the next steps of the prosecution over America’s deadliest terrorist attack.... The case had become mired in more than a decade of pretrial proceedings that focused on whether the detainees’ torture in secret C.I.A. prisons had contaminated the evidence against them.... Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, called the agreement 'a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.' Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas called the deal 'disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attacks,' and introduced legislation intended to nullify it. But Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, hailed the plea agreement as a 'small measure of justice and finality to the victims and their loved ones.'"
"... with mischief-makers on Ireland’s side flashing everything from their bare bums to swastikas and a photo of the Twin Towers in flames on 9/11.... [The] earnest utopian vision proved no match for the pub-lined Dublin thoroughfare, whose Guinness-glugging patrons were quickly drawn to the futuristic-looking exhibit like moths to a flame in videos circulating online. Within hours of the Dublin portal going live, a 'very drunk' woman in her 40s was led away by cops and arrested after 'grinding' her backside against the screen... Adam Nunan, a cruise ship audio engineer originally from Dublin and in New York while the ship is docked here, said, 'That doesn’t represent Ireland very well when you do that. That was everyone’s thoughts back home, there was a lot of people who didn’t want the portal to be built for that reason, that Americans might look at Irish people in the portal doing weird stuff....'"
Earnest utopian vision? Why was this invitation to exhibitionism able to be promoted as utopian? And on what basis does the NY Post present the "utopian vision" as earnest? And why does the headline say "bringing out the worst in people" when the article is all about what's happening on the Irish end of the portal?
"... in exchange for pleading guilty and receiving a maximum punishment of life in prison, according to two administration officials.... The case has been bogged down in pretrial proceedings in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for more than a decade.... In talks with prosecutors, defense lawyers said Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind, and four other defendants wanted certain accommodations, including assurances they would not serve their sentences in solitary confinement and could instead continue to eat and pray communally — as they do now as detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The prisoners also sought a civilian-run program to treat sleep disorders, brain injuries, gastrointestinal damage or other health problems they attribute to the agency’s brutal interrogation methods during their three to four years in C.I.A. custody before their transfer to Guantánamo Bay in 2006...."
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
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?
So what if the NYT has maxed out on articles written in advance and highlighted on the front page of the September 11th edition of the paper? What 9/11 means 21 years later, What young people who don't remember 9/11 think about 9/11, What place does 9/11 have in the psyche of young adults who saw it on television live but couldn't understand it at the time.... There are endless pieces that could be prepared for the commemorative edition and placed prominently to establish that the newspaper has, indeed, once again, presented 9/11 with the proper depth and respect.
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.
I have to open a new post to show you something I found that has nothing to do with the "mystical cord" [sic] that was or may have been Queen Elizabeth.
For years now, I've run into the name Donald Trump not only in the many, many stories about him but in all sorts of articles that have nothing to do with him. Just now, I found this in the OED, under the meaning "Of or relating to mysterious or occult rites or practices":
"... by the breakup of the Soviet Union. Again and again he raised this. That is why, for him, the end of the Soviet empire was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century."
This is a very substantial article, and there are some excellent photographs — Putin scaring Angel Merkel with a dog, George W. Bush yukking it up with a smilingly sober Putin.
When it comes to 1/6 and those who were at the Capitol, there is no middle ground. That playbook is not new. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" was the rigidly binary choice which President George W. Bush presented to Americans and the world when addressing Congress shortly after the 9/11 attack. With that framework in place, anything short of unquestioning support for the Bush/Cheney administration and all of its policies was, by definition, tantamount to providing aid and comfort to the terrorists and their allies. There was no middle ground, no third option, no such thing as ambivalence or reluctance: all of that uncertainty or doubt, insisted the new war president, was to be understood as standing with the terrorists.
I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Encourage Althouse by making a donation:
Make a 1-time donation or set up a monthly donation of any amount you choose:
Posts
