October 5, 2007--Fanaticism XCII--9/11 Bona Fides

I’m coming around to agree with Tom Friedman—we already have a 9/11 president, George W. Bush, and look where that’s gotten us. What we need now is a 9/12 president who can move us forward past our fears into a, like it or not, globalized world of the 21st century. By this criterion, this eliminated Rudy Giuliani who is nothing if not all about 9/11. But just as I was starting to get a little comfortable with Hillary Clinton’s inevitability—do you have a better, realistic option for me to consider?—there she is in her latest campaign ad in full face mask tramping purposely around on Ground Zero. What am I supposed to make of that? I know that her and Rudy’s strategies dovetail—run as if you are already your party’s nominee and appear as presidential as possible. I suppose that for Hillary now that means also competing with Rudy for 9/11 street cred. If so, I’m as finished with her as I am with Giuliani. Her Ground Zero appearance is not about terrorism—sure—but rather about healthcare. The ad says “Hillary stood up for healthcare when almost no one else did . . . . She stood by Ground Zero workers after so many sacrificed their lives, and kept standing until this administration took action.” Clever, clever. She gets in digs at Rudy, of course, who gave rescue workers paper masks rather than the kind that the federal EPA workers wore when they were at the site. And there is the jibe at “this administration.” Then, to complete the trifecta, she takes a swing at her Democratic opponents with that reference to her standing up for health care when “almost no one else did.” But doing all this in a 9/11 flashback is something else she’ll have to atone for to get me feeling comfortable about her again. Then we learn that her rapidly-disappearing chief opponent, Barak Obama, is also tampering with 9/11 symbols. Someone just noticed that he is no longer wearing an American flag pin in his lapel. I say “just noticed” because he apparently hasn’t been wearing one for about six years! When asked about it this week, he said that’s because the flag pin has “became a substitute for true patriotism.” (See linked NY Times story.) Actually, good for him. Democratic wimps such as Senator Reid Congresswoman Pelosi both sport rhinestone flags as a way to show . . . what? That they’re patriotic? That they support the troops but not the war? Because it’s a fashion statement? But Obama has the guts not to wear his flag on his sleeve. He says it’s what in his heart that counts. Too bad he doesn’t tell us more about this. Think how powerful, and courageous it would have been for him to have called a press conference and, before the cameras, removed the pin and told us why he was doing so. He would have been excoriated by all the chicken hawks and pseudo-patriots, which would have done both him and us a lot of good.