Thanks for your post Nathan. I had a 9am class at the New School that morning, and our classroom had a widescreen view of the WTC, where we all watched them burn and eventually crumble. I then followed the mass exodus across the Williamsburg bridge, and watched the ruins smolder for days. Despite the horror and sadness of the event, it still brings a chill to my spine to remember the way all New Yorkers came together, and how Americans from around the country poured in to the City to pitch in, and support each other in the long aftermath.

Which makes my disgust for the Bush regime all the more visceral. He never publicly visited NYC during either of his election campaigns, and all of his other visits have been thinly disguised political theatre, campaign ads to show the rest of the country how much he appears to care.

Meanwhile, we have seen NYC's Homeland (in)Security budget slashed, while far less deserving states have feasted at the pork barrel. We have seen the Bush govt lie to the people of NYC about the air quality at Ground Zero. We have seen benefits slashed or denied to those who gave their all in 'the pit' during the days and weeks following. We have seen the sandbagging and butt-covering of the 9-11 commission. And above all, we have seen the daily political opportunism of 9-11™ by the Bush administration.

Today, I am remembering the brave people of New York, and those who ran towards the danger, during and after, to help their fellow Americans. I know that the vast majority of New Yorkers know the truth in their hearts: George Bush doesn't give a damn about New York or its people, and has proven it time and again.

These are the things that need to be remembered on this day!

The only unity the POTUS sought was the unity that would not question his absolute authority.  He has violated the memories of those who were killed 5 years ago today by constantly invoking 9/11 as a partisan political weapon anytime he is questioned.  He lied and invaded Iraq and nobody was supposed to question him because of our "unity".  His surrogates have labeled some family members of the 9/11 victims as "witches" and "harpies" for questioning the POTUS.  When asked how the hunt for the mastermind of 9/11 was going he responded that (paraphrasing) "Osama has been marginalized and it doesn't matter if we catch him or not".  He and his adminstration has attacked the opposition party and labeled them "appeasers" and "America haters" when they do not show the proper amount of "unity".  Meanwhile many brave Americans and innocent Iraqi civilians are dying while the mastermind of 9/11 still is alive and free, with very little effort being put into catching him as he thumbs his nose at the US and the victim's families...

The families of the victims and the US people deserve to have a maximum effort being placed on bringing the people to justice who perpetrated 9/11...and it is a disgrace that effort isn't being made. 

Unity?  I am still fully supportive of the 9/11 families who want to see the person responsible for killing their loved ones brought to justice.  And obviously George Bush isn't concerned with that...

Who was responsible? Some of us are MIHOP & LIHOP believers. (Made and Let It Happen On Purpose.) We are hoping for a new, impartial investigation to answer questions on who was responsible. Some of us will also be sitting out in the Pumpkin Patch in October with Linus. We hope what will not happen is an October Surprise created by Karl Rove to be just in time for November elections. Oh for the days when fear in October was a really scary Halloween costume and hope was waiting for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin.

No, just a lot of adjunct professors at state universities. These views are pretty much required there.

Clinton tried to get Osama against plenty of resistance from Congress, before the outrage of 9/11.

Bush let him slip away with total support from Congres, after 9/11.

Let's hear again about cowardly liberals.

Unlike Democratic heros like FDR, who pushed his wheelchair up Omaha Beach with the first wave, huh? The President is not a fireman, and it's irresponsible to recommend that he act like one.

This "Bush lied" meme is getting old. President Bush had support in CIA intelligence estimates for the assertions regarding Iraqi WMD. I could provide pages of Democrat assertions to the effect that Iraq had WMD. The estimates didn't change between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. Do you'all contend that the Governor of Texas manipulated a Democrat-controled CIA?

One final point: I realize that administration critics are under no obligation to agree with each other, but it's strange to find Chomsky fans and Michael Moore fans so happy together. US foreign policy is dictated in Tel Aviv --and-- Jidda? Does Mossad control the House of Saud or is it the other way around?

Just askin'.

I agree with Ellen MG. I don't remember comparing it to the Reichstag fire until after Ann published, "How to talk to a Liberal...." in the fall of 2003

The fantasies of the far left, on this one, are genuinely stupid in a way that even the far left is rarely guilty of. The Bush Administration didn't mine those towers

Hmmm, can you name one lefty of any note who believes the towers were mined? Sure, lots and lots of wackos and anti-Bushies, etc but one reasonably solid lefty? I mean, come on, Wayne Madsen and Tom Flacco aren't exactly just far lefties, like, say Mike Davis, they are frauds, unlike, say, Mike Davis, who is a far lefty and is not a fraud (and does not, as far as I know believe that the WTC was mined.)

Otherwise, I agree, it's unbelievable that the Dems haven't used the House of Saud against Bush.

As a pundit put it so aptly a couple of years back, "apparently they were relying on 'faith-based' intelligence"

Christie,

How can one hope to discuss important issues with people that believe things like this?

The far left started jabbering hatred of America

Close to 3,000 people lost their lives on 9/11 and anyone who seriously wants to question the official line handed down is characterized as "hating America". It must be a different "America" that they are defending. It must be an "America" where the most important thing is to not question the party line, to be willing to send so many more people to their deaths without questioning the decider in chief, an "America" that would hardly recognize what the patriots of 1776 fought and died for.

But I feel that I can know a little about why this "America" exists. It exists out of fear. The party line provides security and comfort and new SUVs, wide screen TVs, McMansions, secure suburbs and exurbs, golf courses, car washes and so much "more". Step out of line and you may have to fend for yourself, think for yourself, live life for yourself. That is a terribly insecure place to be. The party also provides a sort of anesthetic, a looking glass, where one can live in places like "Oak Springs" where all the oaks are long gone and the spring has been piped away, but one can still feel that there is a sylvan retreat to be had. This novocain looking glass also allows one to project all of one's fears and doubts onto the scary Other. Any sense that the party has lied to them, that they've been hoodwinked, that their entire life is a hollow shell, that they've been bought off so easily for a few punds of plastic and semiconductors, grass seed and transfats, any sense of anger that may arise from this inkling, this noodling feeling is easily projected onto anyone who may question the party line, they are, afterall, Outsiders. The Outsiders must hate them.

They have no idea of the compassion so many of us feel for those caught in such a plight. They have no conception of the courage it takes to actually employee critical thinking to crucial matters and to bravely follow one's doubts. They see that as weakness. Alas.

Perhaps compassion is the only answer. It is the only way to counter hate that I know of.

OK, I'll bight (what juicy bate, but I suspect I'll regret it and wish I had taken my own advice):

You said that the far left started jabbering hatred for America, setting aside whether this statement is hate mongering or not, I am interested in just what do you mean? Where do you perceive hatred for America in the far, near or middle or any sort of left?

My supposition is that you are referring to quite a different America than I commonly think of.

Oh, and don't worry, I really wasn't talking about you in particular, I was referring to the general group that would percieve hatred in what the left has been saying and why?

Nothing could improve on the above post.

[note: refers to Christie's one about IHOPs and HIPHOPs]

"So how dare you even infer, let alone suggest or imply that it is Democrats who are cowardly."

How about if I just say it flat-out? While there are certainly Dems who are not cowards, the vast majority of elected Democrats, to this day, won't utter the word "impeach" when discussing George Bush. Looks like cowardice to me.

As to the cons, I might accept that many or most of them are in fact cowards, in the face of real danger. But they have the courage of their convictions in a way the left doesn't appear to.

Of course you're cheating a bit here by switching from foreign-policy muscularity to political courage.

I'm guessing, but it seems unlikely any GOP pols would have mentioned "impeach Clinton" if they were far from power, a minority in bith houses. It's mostly that, I'm sure.

Note that even Conyers is not calling for impeachment, but hearings.

Professor Jackoff was one Nicholas diGenova (search for "million Mogadishus" and you find him).

Is it Michael Moore that really gets you? Are you really so worried about how Katha Pollit wants to raise her own child? Are you afraid that America can't deal with terrorism unless we all become conformists? Is America really that weak?

Are you really so worried about how those people in the suburb you imagined feed theirs? I don't get this new rhetorical trope-- "Republicans are against something-- therefore they're cowards!" Well, then Democrats are hurricane wusses-- stand up to broken levees like a man! It's only water! Can't anyone be against something because they think it's wrong any more? Or because it's enlightening to show by what principles you disagree with it?

I've often wondered what people who are so angry at the left would really do if there were somehow, some incontrovertible evidence that there were some high American officials complicit in 9/11

Insist that they be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Not sure what imagining a hypothetical like that is supposed to prove. What if I proved that all the money paid out by LBJ's Great Society wound up in the hands of the Black Panthers? Would it make you into Milton Friedman? Mine is at least slightly closer to reality....

when you think about what Bush has done, that we all can agree that he has done, i.e. made war against a sovereign country on bogus reasons, on outright lies that were his responsibility to check and double check. I mean he took us to war! for god's sake.

But we don't agree on all that. First of all, Iraq was not a sovereign country at that point-- it was in a state of ceasefire under the United Nations after the first Gulf War, which had passed 17 resolutions about Saddam's noncompliance with that ceasefire. Its "sovereignty" was "violated" by our fighter jets all through the Clinton years (remember the "no-fly zone"?) One third of it was being run, under our protection, by the Kurds who lived there. The rest was under sanctions. So it was not exactly like Germany invading Belgium here.

Secondly, I find that when I quiz people about the "lies" Bush told for why we went to war, and then show the text of the resolution Congress passed and the likes of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards voted for, and the speeches Bush made in support of it, a funny thing happens-- they can't find the lies in any of that. So what are these lies? And let's go looking for them.

If Bush had not used "lies and misrepresentations to sell a war in Iraq" there was no possibility that Congress would have authorized a war that has fundamentally and irrevocably de-stabilized the Middle East.

Instead there would be "national unity" around suppressing Al Queda by purely police/security means in alliance with the corrupt regimes of the region.

That would work in preventing another attack for years - as indeed it has done.

But what then? The regional stagnation and despair that provides no outlet for progressive development would continue.

There would be no possibility of ever being able to do anything about Saudi Arabia and Egypt where the 9/11 crew came from until those regimes were finally replaced by Al Queda style regimes as another generation grew up in despair under the rule of America's "moderate Arab allies" and "tolerably contained dictators".

Instead there is a bitter war, with bitter national divisions about that war.

Iraqis know they face a stark choice between establishing a stable democracy and being subjected to the rule of head-choppers and mullah's death squads.

Americans know they face a stark choice between supporting Iraqis in that fight or accepting the consequences of terrorist rule in Iraq.

Israelis know that they have no option but to withdraw from the West Bank.

Egypt knows that the Mubarek dictatorship must be replaced by free elections.

Saudi Arabians know that the House of Saud cannot survive a democratic Iraq next door.

A Saudi Prince put the issue very clearly when he replied to Condi's talk of "a new middle east" by saying he preferred the old middle east.

That's exactly what would have been preserved (with the approbation of the US foreign policy establishment, intelligence community et al) if Bush had maintained US "national unity" by not launching a "divisive" war with Iraq.

The inevitable consequence of the old Middle East was Al Queda and 9/11. The inevitable consequence of maintaining US national unity would have been more of the same - there is no possibility that counter-terrorism measures could prevent successful attacks indefinately while the underlying problem of the stagnant societies they come from remains unaddressed.

There was a possibility that Democrats could have decided not to be divisive about it. That choice was made by Democrats, not by Bush.

Is the "giant wheel" on the Thames?

Thanks for the confidence.