With the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks just passed, it?s disheartening to reflect how little things have changed for the better since then.
The days and weeks following the crisis brought the nation purpose, clarity and unity. Cleanup efforts at ground zero exceeded forecasts.
Ousting the Taliban and putting al-Qaida on the run proved easier than pessimists warned, mostly because of the remarkable ingenuity of the American military.
Most importantly, President Bush?s steady, strong leadership fostered a political climate in which the nation could effectively begin the much-delayed struggle against Islamic terrorism.
That all now seems like a half-remembered dream.
We have been back to politics as usual for a while now, and who better to underscore that fact than Bill Clinton.
The former president proved he hasn?t lost his knack for narcissism, reasserting himself into the news cycle that should have been focused on remembering the dead and reassessing our progress against the still-present worldwide terror threat.
The ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11” was a good-faith, fairly well-made contribution to that important national conversation, but Clinton could not bear the affront to his legacy.
ABC made several edits to the miniseries after Clinton and members of his administration complained that it misrepresented their response to al-Qaida?s pre-Sept. 11 attacks on American targets around the world.
That ABC caved even a little is shameful, if understandable. After all, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid asked the network to pull the show in a letter to the CEO of its parent, The Walt Disney Co. By invoking the Communications Act of 1934 in the letter, he implicitly threatened the network with censorship.
Someone should tell Clinton that results matter much more than even the best of intentions when thousands of lives are at stake.
No edit can obscure the fact that Clinton?s administration failed in its most basic duty: to protect the American people.
Every president since Jimmy Carter, on whose watch the Islamic Revolution seized Iran, has failed to adequately recognize and combat Islamofascism.
The Bush administration is playing catch up, but newspaper editors, federal judges and, sadly, a big chunk of the opposition party, hamper it at every turn.
Democrats stake their dreams for the midterm election on the hope that voters will not consider fighting Islamofascism, the most important issue this nation will face for years to come.
What does that say about the Democratic Party and about our entire political system?
The state of Iraq is beyond frustrating. The fact that Osama bin Laden still breathes is embarrassing. But petulantly saying so day after day is not a credible terrorism policy. If it was, Comedy Central star Jon Stewart would be president.
Bush?s opponents also grumble that the president should have used his post-Sept. 11 political capital to call for shared sacrifice that would have preserved a sense of national unity.
That?s not a bad idea. We could start now by asking senior citizens, the wealthiest segment of society, to give back the extravagant Medicare drug entitlement, which is on pace to cost more than $1 trillion in its first 10 years.
It would be far wiser to spend that money on the thousands of Arabic, Farsi and Korean translators sorely needed than on grandpa?s Viagra.
One of the best scenes of “The Path to 9/11” involves Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud and a CIA agent who have located bin Laden and are waiting on the Clinton administration?s permission to act.
“Are there no men left in Washington, or all they all cowards?” Massoud asks as another opportunity slips away. He was assassinated by al-Qaida on Sept. 9, 2001, two days before his warnings proved correct.
Five years later, the enemies of civilization continue to force us to confront that question every day.
Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at [email protected].
