The anniversary of September 11th is a strange and unambiguously American day. By all logic it should be a day dedicated to the victims of those terrible attacks: whether it started out that way or not I can hardly remember, but it quickly shifted into a day being about not the unchanging past, but the glancing present. It was not about the people who lost their lives, but about why we should do the thing as a result of it, where the thing was invade Iraq, or occupy Iraq, or stay in Iraq, or strip habeas rights, or stay longer in Iraq, or conduct domestic espionage against Americans in violation of the law, or re-elect the President, or stay yet longer in Iraq, or torture our enemies, or support the troops by staying still longer in Iraq.
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Today Sean Hannity is having a Freedom Concert at a New Jersey amusement park, which has opened on a fall weekday especially for the occasion. The concert will support the troops. I originally thought it was crass -- no, creepy -- to be having a 9/11 memorial at a place with a water park and ferris wheel. But what do I know? We have gone this far, and to great fanfare -- why not make the whole day an amusement ride? It was a horrific terrorist attack that ingrained itself into the national psyche as much as Pearl Harbor: funnel cakes, anyone?
I'd encourage you to go read the whole thing.
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