Paul Krugman has a shameful column today, shameful even by Krugman standards.
Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it…
Of course, if the commemorations were not “subdued” Krugman would be saying the same thing, except using the “oddly not subdued” commemorations as proof. It doesn’t matter what the facts are, it’s Krugman’s world view in which conservatives and Republican always are the culprits, which is the problem. Tellingly, the last sentence in Krugman’s post is “I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.”
Don’t think this is just Krugman. It’s the way they really feel about 9/11, as expressed in this post by a blogger I quoted over a year ago, 9/11 Was “Right-Wing Christmas”:
Really, Mr. President, don’t you know that right-wingers love 9/11, and hold it sacred? It’s their favorite day of the year, their favorite day in living history; every year, 9/11 fills them with the unsurpassable bliss of self-righteousness. It’s a day that provided so many grievance points to them (and, as far as they’re concerned, to them alone, although those of us who, y’know, lived where the attacks took place might beg to differ) that they know they can’t possibly ever run out.
Right-wingers love 9/11 because it’s a day when they felt they became extraordinarily virtuous just for slathering their homes with flags, their vehicles with “Terrorist Hunting License” bumper stickers, their homepages with sentimental video of property destruction in a city they otherwise despise. They use 9/11 to justify hatred of Muslims, liberals — even Mexicans.
That’s how they feel, so in a sense I’m glad Krugman gave voice to it on this day. They can’t stand the fact that the attacks on 9/11 proved that their world view was wrong, and every mention of 9/11 is like a thorn in their political sides.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will continue to remember 9/11 in an “oddly subdued” manner.
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