The Dead Zone

The past few days I've been swamped with work...that's why there's nothing new 'round here.

This'll have to hold you...

Reading Assignment

This is a pretty close approximation of my thoughts each year on 9/11...

Have you finished composing your "where I was" blog post or, god save us, your #whereiwas Tweet? Have you muted MSNBC's deplorable annual encore performance of the televised deaths of thousands? Have you remembered to never forget? Good. Fine.

Shortly after (or maybe during) that day, our president at the time, a little fuckhead no one liked, handed over the reins to the most psychotic elements of his administration. In the vast national wave of jingoism, paranoia, dread, and fear that followed, he and his friends led us into an unrelated war they'd been planning beforehand, allowed the CIA to wiretap and torture anyone they liked (and encouraged the CIA to wiretap and torture even more than they were comfortable with!), and regularly insisted that our memory of that day should not be sullied with critical thinking or expressions of anything other than still-palpable fear. This played better in the sorts of places that had nothing to fear from international terrorism, but plenty of formerly reasonable-acting people in the major targets did play along, both out of personal conviction and partisan duty.

In fact an entire cottage industry of dudes who were Changed Forever On That Day thrived on the internet. Bloggers, all of whom were self-professed Former Liberal Democrats, were suddenly freed to be racist, bloodthirsty warmongers. They were rewarded with traffic and mainstream legitimacy (even as they ritually attacked the MSM as terrorist-loving fifth columnists). Most are still treated as Serious People, even though their defining characteristic was a hysterical response to a crisis.

Yeah, pretty much. The damage done to the country from 9/11 was mostly self-inflicted. [h/t Anne at Balloon Juice]

UPDATE: Great comment thread in that BJ post.

The Daily Dissent

Andrew Sullivan is back from his weeks long retreat to Provincetown, and it's as if he's gone back in time. Back to when I would disagree with just about everything he writes.

For instance...

The Cap -- Since Obama mentioned it in his speech, Sullivan has a series of posts in support of tort reform (1, 2, 3, 4) and the institution of a cap on malpractice awards. The President is wrong to throw the "tort reform" bone along with all the other concessions he is making, and Sullivan's support is just as misguided. Tort reform is a red herring issue and a crock of shit. I'll need to say more about that later.

Give Wilson His Due? I'm not even sure wtf Andrew is talking about here, but there's no real apology in this three minute campaign cash appeal.

9-11 -- Good God is Andrew right back to his bedwetting post-attack patheticalness. Still rationalizing the mistakes made by Bush and his own ridiculous posture and lockstep support ("fifth column," anyone?). A sample [my emphasis]:

It's worth also recalling, after the bitter and often justified criticism of the last president's subsequent war policy, how intense and terrifying it was for those in power back then. They deserved the support they were given because they were our elected leaders, regardless of party, and the nation had been attacked. It was extremely hard to know what to do in the absence of actionable intelligence and a display of such theatrical nihilism. Emergency measures in the aftermath are what the executive branch is there for. Mistakes are [made?] and should be forgivable at a moment like that. And, as readers know, my own passionate support for fighting back against Islamism under the last president only collapsed with the feckless negligence toward Afghanistan, the disastrously conducted occupation of Iraq, the shady intelligence fiasco that made it possible, and, much more profoundly, the embrace of torture in a war for human rights.

Terrifying for those in power? Horseshit. I'm no Truther, but I don't think any part of Cheney was terrified for even a moment. The clear path to power must have been exhilarating to him and his ilk. I'm not exaggerating when I say that one of my first thoughts when I realized what had happened was that the Bush Administration would capitalize on and milk the shit out of it. And I wasn't half as cynical back then. But, while cold-hearted, I was being realistic. And I was right. We didn't ALL lose our shit, Andrew.

Wrong Again -- He declares David Brooks' flawed and frame-laced "analysis" of Obama's speech as "brilliant." Trust me, it's not. I read it so you don't have to.

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I'm tired and cranky, and I'm going to bed.