Thursday, September 11th, 2008

Political Culture: Enough! (With the 9/11 Exploitation)

by Jon Cummings

Though my head is exploding over the lunacy of John McCain’s increasingly cowardly and dishonorable presidential campaign, it seems imperative that I join the rest of the political culture in taking a break from the back-and-forth of lipstick and pigs and idiot conservatives (whoops), and devote some space to a reflection on 9/11 and its continued impact on our American life.

There. Can I move on now?

I don’t mean to sound crass. I just don’t believe that, seven years on, you need to hear my personal perspective on 9/11. I also don’t feel a need to impart my memories of that day (suffice it to say I was at work at the U.N. when the planes hit, then was evacuated from both my office and Grand Central Station and spent the day with fellow future-Popdoser Bob Cashill, who was kind enough to take me in). My thoughts on the attacks’ long-term political and cultural ramifications similarly aren’t important; you’ll get enough of that elsewhere today, unless you choose to spend the day (as I might) under a rock.

However, when the wife woke me this morning with the news that she had spent the previous hour and a half watching a real-time replay of the Today show’s 9/11 coverage on MSNBC, I was stirred anew by rage and resentment. Not toward al Qaeda or bin Laden or the Taliban or the hijackers, though that’s there too – it’s always there, not just one day a year. Instead, I raged at the callousness of those who continue the cynical use of 9/11 as a tool for achieving their own purposes – be they a political party or a television network.

Anyone who watched MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican convention last week, or who watched Countdown last night, knows that Keith Olbermann has been apoplectic over the video “tribute” to 9/11 that aired minutes before McCain accepted his party’s nomination for president. Olbermann’s fits, which culminated in a typically rambling “Special Comment” last night, have been well-placed (if untidy and, as usual, over the top). That convention video was truly appalling, a crime against the memories of those who lost someone in the attacks as well as those who lived through them. It was overly explicit both in its footage and in the (wrong-headed) politics of its narration. Perhaps even worse, by conflating the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80 with al Qaeda’s campaign of attacks on U.S. interests, it once again betrayed the Republicans’ inability to differentiate Shi’ite Muslims from Sunnis, and thus it implicated the full sweep of contemporary Islam as the “enemy” (the video’s word) in our War of Terror (Borat’s words).

It was part of a pattern of – yes – racism that marked the last two days of the convention, a pattern which also included Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin’s disparaging remarks about Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer, and the response of the baying wolves in the hall to those remarks. That’s an issue for another day, but Republicans who think the rest of us didn’t notice their horrifying behavior are kidding themselves.

Olbermann’s immediate response to the GOP video was even more primal, and (thankfully) more succinct, than his rant of last night. Here are his words from last Thursday: “I’m sorry, it’s necessary to say this, and I wanted to separate myself from the others on the air about this. If, at this late date, any television network had of its own accord shown that much … graphic videotape of 9/11 – and I speak as somebody who lost a few friends there – it … we … would be rightly eviscerated by all quarters, and perhaps by the Republican Party itself, for exploiting the memories of the dead and perhaps even for trying to evoke that pain again.”

Cut to 8:51 EDT this morning, and the break-in on those same MSNBC airwaves of Katie Couric’s voice announcing that an airplane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. (It was 5:51 PDT in not-yet-sunny California, where I live, which goes to show how early my wife has to get up in the morning so that I can live my life of leisure, child-rearing and Popdosery.) The replayed coverage continued for over three hours, as the second plane hit the towers, a third struck the Pentagon, and a fourth hit the ground in Pennsylvania; as both towers collapsed; as the survivors stumbled in droves uptown and across the Brooklyn Bridge; as a bomb scare was announced at nearby Stuyvesant High School (where my niece was then a junior); and as the sketchy early reports of hijacked airliners began to coalesce into a tale of coordinated terror that would spur the (few) triumphs and (many) disasters of George Bush’s foreign policy.

I’ve detailed these events that played out (again) on MSNBC this morning just in case you’d forgotten them. What’s that you say? You’ll never forget them? Well, no kidding! So why does MSNBC feel it needs to give us the opportunity to relive the Worst Day of Our Lives every year on September 11? Do the network honchos somehow believe they’re performing a public service? Or might it just be that they recognize the potential for a once-a-year ratings boost, and have decided they’ll keep firing up the videotape every year until the numbers no longer jump?

Well, MSNBC, I’m here to eviscerate you for exploiting the memories of the dead, and for trying to evoke that pain again. Will Keith rail against his own bosses in another “Special Comment” tomorrow evening? Don’t bet on it. But he should.

And perhaps next September, once this election season has finally finished shoving a long-awaited cork in the Bush era, politicians and news networks (and bloggers) should back off a bit on the 9/11 reminiscences and updates and analyses and replays. Yes, it was a cataclysmic event for our entire nation, but it was also a day of personal tragedy for millions. Maybe it’s time to start giving everybody just a little bit of space to mourn, to reflect, to rage, to hope – thoughtfully … and quietly.

By the way, we won’t see Keith tonight; his show is being pre-empted for the “Forum on Service” that has been cooked up to give McCain and Obama a chance to appear all statesmanlike before McCain gets back to the business of savaging Obama like a jackal tearing into an antelope. (David Gregory will be anchoring MSNBC’s coverage for the first time since Olbermann and Chris Matthews were correctly displaced from that job in favor of their commentating roles.)

I’ll be amazed tonight if Obama can get through this somber occasion while suppressing what must be an overwhelming urge to bitch-slap that cowardly, lying bastard McCain. (Editor’s note: Jon, did you just call Sarah Palin a bitch? The right-wing blogosphere awaits your apology…)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Current Events, Political Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Yeah, I was thinking along these lines this afternoon.

    Do you think Osama Bin Laden is laughing at us every year we sodomize the wound? And as garish a term as that might be, that's exactly how the news media is "commemorating" the day.
  • Malchus
    Jon,
    I agree that the way the Republicans trot out 9/11on a minute to minute basis is vile. They have nothing to offer to the American people but fear (and unless you didn't know this, John McCain was a POW and Sarah Palin played basketball in high school).
    I don't have a problem with having some sort of remembrance of what happened on this day, though. At my kids' school today they had a special flag raising ceremony to commemorate the day. Something like that, which stimulates questions and is respectful (and actually honors the fallen) is totally appropriate. I recall December 7th coming and going each day as a student and never grasping the significance.

    Nice piece.
  • 9/11 is history and, like it or not, we'll never be able to deny it or avoid it. I only wish we could get past this day without our leaders and media "pulling the red wire" to make us cower.
  • steve
    The very fact that anyone cares what the likes of Keith Olbermann or Bill Oreilly say astonishes me. They are both vapid, childish beings who are probably the two most deplorable personalities in television.

    And I see your point Jon - no one who witnessed that day will likely forget it. But merely saying "I haven't forgotten that day" doesn't get to the point. I fly very often. Increasingly over the past few years, i wait in line at airport security and hear people complain, make cynical remarks, be beligerent to the TSA folks, and use words like 'ridiculous' 'over the top' etc etc. Have they "forgotten" 9/11? No. Have they forgotten the complicated reasons behind it? Well, they probably never understood them, and don't care to. In other words, no they'll never forget that day. But they seem to forget that there are hundreds if not thousands of extremists across the world who are right now plotting to kill me, you, and every "infidel". And they're trying every way they can possible think of. That's what people mean when they say "don't forget that day". In that sense, people are starting to forget.

    I don't want to see replays of minute by minute coverage from that day either - and it shouldn't be used as a scare tactic (don't just blame the right, Hillary is just as guilty), but as Malchus wrote below, we need to find appropriate ways of gently reminding people that they are, right now, being targeted. I've been to Afghanistan, I've seen people look at me in a manner that left no doubt that they would kill me if they could get away with it - purely based on religious hate. That's what folks mean when they say "don't forget".

    And BTW, great piece as always.
  • Ted
    Today's paper (SF Chronicle) has a story about how the economy is the most important thing for Americans right now. Combatting/preventing terrorist acts has dropped considerably in importance, and I think we've reached a kind of "diminishing returns" status when it comes to terrorism. A good deal of it has to do with the way in which war, terrorism, 9/11 have been constantly hammered into our heads year after year. It gets to the point where one starts to become numb to the constant state of emergency. Politicians and news outlets looking to ping in the information stream will never tire of pushing tragedy for their own personal gains. However, there are, like Malchus was saying, ways to reflect on the significance of this day that are more appropriate. The first step: don't watch TV.
  • Unfortunately, no one has informed the GOP of this as they embark on this campaign of, "It's morning in America and you're all dead meat..."
  • There's one other thing people ought to remember on this date. The response. Seven years later. Many attacks thwarted. Zero successful follow-up terrorist attacks. The amount of credit Bush seems to get from the media and the left? Zero.

    I will never say that our action in Iraq represented the best response to 9/11. It has been the most contentious response, to be sure. But efforts have been made against Al Qaeda in dozens of other countries. This part of the war on terror has had much greater success than the war in Iraq, largely ignored by the media. Those interested in understanding the success of Bush's efforts as well as his more obvious failures would do well to check out Richard Miniter's book Shadow War from their library.

    So yes, the tragedy of 9/11 is still remembered. We should also remember the action taken in its wake, and its success in safeguarding America from further tragedies.

    Eric the idiot conservative
  • JonCummings
    Yeah, Eric, and the Bushies handled Gustav just great as well.

    I will check out Shadow War at some point, and I certainly hope that the Bushies have been more successful in those elements of the terror fight that relate to...hmm...law enforcement and intelligence gathering rather than warmaking. (How very John Kerry! Who'd a thunk it? Oh, right, about 70 million of us.) Just imagine if, say, two months of the Iraq War budget (and a couple months' worth of our Abu Ghraib and Gitmo manpower) had gone instead to things like securing our ports and nuclear facilities?

    However, that game of law-enforcement whack-a-mole (which, by now, everyone agrees is necessary) would stand a much greater chance of success had Bush not devoted much of his presidency to creating the conditions for more terrorists and more terrorism, and had Bush/Cheney not alienated most of our allies with their stupidity and arrogance.

    Please be careful when you use phrases like "zero successful follow-up attacks." People in Bali, Madrid, London and elsewhere might hear you. They're still pretty upset. And that phrase that Iraq "has been our most contentious response"? That's a knee-slapper -- and the kind of blame-denying understatement that could only come from the last of the true believers.
  • Ted
    But Jon, it doesn't matter that those "other" people have experienced terrorist attacks since 9/11, all that matters is "Fortress America" is safe. Gosh!
  • bill
    Um, ok so it is the job of the U.S. President to make sure that Bali is not attacked? I don't think so. It is his job (and his main job) to make sure the U.S. is not attacked. At last check, he had accomplished that mission
  • He had? At last check, he was in office when the last attack occurred.
  • steve
    Please, this is a silly argument. Bottom line is that Al'Qaida has been severly hurt by our efforts since 9/11, and that's a good thing. Jefito - we were attacked numerous times by Al'Qaida under Clinton and he did nothing but launch a few cruise missiles. You know as well as I do that Bush was in office for a grand total of 8 months when it happened. The Clinton administration turned a blind eye to AQ for 8 years with multiple attacks on the US - both here and abroad - and we got what we got.
  • I love it. You make a dodo statement, someone calls you on it, and all of a sudden we're having a silly argument. One of these days I'm going to start parting my hair, wearing Dockers, and calling myself a conservative, just so I can use loony bin tactics in debates and get away with it.
  • steve
    all well and good, but if you care to address the topic that'd be great.
  • JonCummings
    How about if I do it? Bush masturbated away the eight months before 9/11 obsessing about violating the ABM treaty so he could pursue his useless missile-defense fetish, and meanwhile he ignored numerous specific warnings about terrorist objectives, scrapped the Clinton administration's detailed plan for combating al Qaeda, and then read My Pet Goat for 11 minutes after being informed of the WTC attack.

    I won't go to the mattresses for Clinton on his failure to act more strongly after the embassy bombings in '98, but let's face it, the wacko conservatives had him over a barrel at the time for cheating on his wife. I don't imagine the GOP Congress would have done anything to support a more pro-active response, and would have done anything in its power to undercut him, the same way it did in ever circumstance for eight years (including the Balkans, and aren't you now ashamed of yourselves?).

    The Cole bombing happened in the fall of 2000, less than 2 months before the election, which understandably left Clinton wary of acting in a way that might either swing the election or be undercut by the next administration. (We can say now that he should have had more balls at that time, but again, had he done anything more than he did at the time, you GOP wolves would have been howling like crazy.)

    The fact is that the Clintons left a detailed plan of action for dealing with al Qaeda, which the Bushies stuck in a drawer while they spent the spring and summer of 2001 pissing off everybody on the planet with missile defense. They also ignored numerous memos and pleas for attention from Richard Clarke, the CIA and other sources--including intel that Arabs were attending flight schools in the U.S. but didn't seem interested in learning how to land the planes. You can spin it all as furiously as you want, but it's laughable to attempt to absolve Bush's large share of blame for 9/11 happening on his watch.

    History will not be kind to him, or to those who enabled him and elected him to a second term.
  • steve
    Jon, c'mon, you've shoveling the dooty right now. First off, it's always necessary for me to tell people that I am not an evil conservative, nor am I a democrat. I've stated here many times that both parties frankly scare and abhor me and should be abolished. I do something novel and actually think about each issue myself, instead of letting some party dogma tell me what position to take. Just gettin that out there.

    How about WTC one in 1993 - right after Clinton got in office? Yeah, that was on our soil, and nothing was done. His "detailed plan" is a farce. And as far as "pleas from the CIA", you mean the part of CIA that was left after being drawn down an dessimated from the Clinton years? Practically no human operators left, and a much smaller budget, during a time of the growth of A'Qaida. I'm surprised there was anyone left to plea.

    That's a great "detailed plan". You are also forgetting that the 9/11 attacks took years to plan - all under Clinton's watch. By the time Bush came in office they were way way down the road and in the final stages. Why didn't Clinton's detailed plan see them or catch them during that time? If you say "Monica" you know as well as I that won't fly.

    Now overall you are still right that history will not be kind to Bush and should not be - for Iraq alone. But what we've done in Afghanistan is right, and it's still the proper mission. And unless we can get Pakistan to quell the safehaven in their tribal areas for the Taliban, it won't end. That will have t be from very tricky diplomacy because Pakistan is a very troubled and complicated country right now.
  • JonCummings
    You and I agree completely on your last paragraph, as I've said in past posts.

    As for WTC'93, the immediate perpetrators of that crime were in fact brought to justice. It wasn't splashy, it wasn't warlike, perhaps it wasn't cathartic or vengeful enough for you, but it was real and it was effective.

    And as for the CIA: First, you're overstating your case dramatically by saying there were "practically no human operators left," and if anything Bush's CIA is far worse (bullied into misrepresenting the Iraqi threat, horrendous morale, still few Arabic speakers seven years after 9/11, etc.).

    Second, in retrospect we can all harp on the dire consequences of the military and intel cutbacks of the '90s, but there were practically no mainstream voices arguing against those cutbacks at the time, on either the right or the left. It was a conservative thinker, Fukuyama, who trumpeted "the end of history" after the Soviet Union's fall.

    Finally, where's your evidence that the anti-terror plan Clinton left behind was a "farce"? It's been de-classified; it's right here (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/c...). To say that Clinton's folks should have been able to thwart the 9/11 plot when it was in its infancy, in Germany's Hamburg cell and before the hijackers began their flight training in late 2000, is farcical. The time to thwart it was when they were living in the US, attending flight schools, buying plane tickets without proper ID, etc., etc.--all of which reached critical mass during the spring and summer of 2001, when Bush was dismissing terror intel reports with phrases like, "There, you've covered your ass now."

    Dismissing "Monica" as a factor in all this is what "won't fly." The simple fact is, Republicans in this country tried to bring down the American government twice during the '90s, with the '95 shutdown and with the Monica scandal. And on a realistic political level, everything Clinton tried to do on every front during '98-'99 had to be calibrated for its impact on the rabid idiots of the Republican Congress. You can dismiss it all you want now, but you were there at the time -- the scandal left Clinton with virtually no "political capital" that would allow him to do something as drastic as send a force after bin Laden.

    There's plenty of blame to go around for allowing 9/11 to happen--and I'm far from a perfect Clinton apologist, because I now think (though I didn't at the time) that he should have resigned over the Monica scandal, in which case President Gore's (I sure like the sound of that) hands wouldn't have been tied and President Bush never would have happened.

    But to try to place all the blame for 9/11 at Clinton's feet because he didn't send an army after bin Laden in '98 or the fall of 2000 is an ideological cul-de-sac that history won't back up.
  • steve
    I’m not saying the Clinton administration is fully to blame Jon. There’s plenty to go around. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. The real bottom line is that the inability/refusal to share intel between FBI, CIA, NSA etc was really the main reason the attacks got through, as anyone who has read the 9/11 Commission Report knows. That’s a problem that can be blamed on all administrations. But as for Clinton, having a “detailed plan” and doing nothing but lobbing a few cruise missiles after a period of 8 years in which Al’Qaida was killing U.S. citizens and committing horrible acts of terrorism across the world – including on our own soil! – is failure of the worst kind. Eight years, and he leaves with “here’s my detailed plan”. Please.

    And you say “we can all harp on the dire consequences of the military and intel cutbacks of the '90s, but there were practically no mainstream voices arguing against those cutbacks at the time, on either the right or the left” You’re playing that down a bit Jon. You are correct they were dire consequences indeed. And this is where the problem lies. Just because there were “no voices” against it does not – in any way – give Clinton a pass. He’s supposed to LEAD. He’s supposed to be THE voice. He just went with the flow. Clinton was famous for wanting to know what polls said before he made some decisions. I want someone who is a thinker and who has convictions and who makes the smart decisions – even if there are no mainstream voices who agree. That’s a leader. He failed us in the 90’s. Bush has failed us this decade.

    So who’s next – will someone step up and do what their vision and conviction tells them – regardless of what their party swine say and what “mainstream thinkers” say?
  • Dan
    Wasn't Bush handed a memo?
  • JonCummings
    So, in your view, the only adequately "strong" military & intelligence racket is one that is permanently at full Cold War strength. Hey, Steve--are you willing to tax Americans enough to make your permanent apparatus affordable?
  • You wrote, "Maybe it’s time to start giving everybody just a little bit of space to mourn, to reflect, to rage, to hope – thoughtfully … and quietly."

    Wonderful suggestion, but I don't think that our species is capable of doing anything quietly anymore.
  • G
    AMEN Brother!
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