I’m a little late to wading into the controversy over New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s 9/11 post, but I have a good explanation. When I saw the post, I found it disturbing, but I also thought yesterday was a day for quietly remembering the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and I didn’t want to get into politics. Evidently Krugman didn’t have such a problem.
Part of the controversy involves Krugman calling Rudy Giuliani and George Bush “fake heroes” and arguing that the tragedy was politicized. Greg Sargent, while disassociating himself with Krugman’s choice of words and timing, does agree that Republicans used the event as a political issue, while Dave Weigel notes that “denying that 9/11 and counterterrorism strategy became ‘wedge issues’ is denying a few years of political history.”
Recommended Stories
The general criticism of Republicans for “politicizing” 9/11 has been well litigated. Personally, I believe that in the wake of the worst attack on American soil in its history, the question of who was best prepared to lead our nation in the War on Terrorism was a perfectly legitimate political issue. I don’t think somebody who argued in 1944 that Americans should stick with FDR because he’s a strong wartime leader was exploiting the war or Pearl Harbor. Obviously, others took a different view regarding the politics of 9/11. Giuliani received a lot of mockery for talking about 9/11 too much during his presidential campaign, and Barack Obama explicitly campaigned against what he called the “politics of fear” in 2008. But the point is, whatever your view, Krugman’s politicization critique is nothing new.
What was most disturbing about Krugman’s post was that he choose the morning of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a day when most people put aside the political arguments of the last decade and even Bush and Obama walked shoulder to shoulder at the memorial, to write: “The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.”
Like Americans on all sides of the political spectrum, my thoughts on the 9/11 anniversary were focused on remembering my own experiences that day, watching memorial services and related programming and mourning the terrible losses. Over the past decade, I’ve had fierce disagreements with liberals when it’s come responding to terrorism, but that’s the last thing I had on my mind when I was re-watching the haunting footage of the attacks. I just wanted to cry.
So when I say I feel sorry for Krugman, I really mean it. Most of us, however ideologically passionate, have the ability to compartmentalize politics from other aspects of our lives. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be so consumed with disgust for opposing political figures that it somehow “irrevocably poisoned” your ability to memorialize those who lost their lives in a horrific tragedy.
