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12/7/41, 9/11/01, . . . ?
Brett Stephens, Wall Street Journal. . . People also began speaking of the [9/11] attacks as a "tragedy," as if they were no different in kind from a catastrophic earthquake. This was largely a product of linguistic slovenliness. But as George Orwell once observed, "the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." To suggest that 9/11 was anything other than an outrage is one such thought, though really it's more like a form of ideological legerdemain. A tragedy involves no villainy or evil, except perhaps metaphorically; assigns no blame, except perhaps against fundamentally impersonal causes; and prescribes no remedy, much less any form of justice, other than the act of "healing" itself. Marking 9/11 as a "tragedy" thus becomes a way of signifying its political irrelevance. On the most recent anniversary of 9/11, both candidates walked side-by-side into Ground Zero, presumably to underscore some baseline commonality of purpose. This was appropriate, but it was also in some ways misleading. The animating impulses of Mr. McCain's life have always revolved around the act of confrontation: against the traditions and methods of the Naval Academy; against his captors in Vietnam; against "special interests," especially those connected to his own party; against Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin and the general threat posed by radical Islam. Most, though not all, of these were fights worth having, and 9/11 is a reminder of what happens when they are avoided. By contrast, Mr. Obama's candidacy rests on the promise of transcendence, though in practice that often seems like a form of slipperiness. He has campaigned on the theme that the old categories no longer apply: not of race or class, or of blue and red states, or of left and right. And in the matter of race, the transcendence Mr. Obama offers is genuinely wonderful. But not everything is susceptible to transcendence. Terrorists will not be less dangerous by being contextualized in a matrix of threats that includes climate change and global poverty, or because they will be mollified by Mr. Obama's middle name. Nor will Iran be deterred from developing nuclear weapons because a President Obama will restore faith in "brand America." A global financial crisis has now given voters a fresh reason to turn the page on the 9/11 era and attend to a different set of fears. Electing a "transformational" president might even ease the transition. But it bears keeping in mind that America's second Pearl Harbor only took place when we were well on the road to forgetting about the first one. Posted by: Mike 2008-11-04 |
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