Earlier this week, President Bush addressed the nation on the evening of the five-year anniversary of Sept. 11. Because he discussed the fight in Iraq, and several other hot topics of debate including the transfer of captured al-Qaida to Guantanamo Bay and eavesdropping on terrorists’ phone calls, Democrats contended that he had politicized a speech at a time that he that ought to unify us.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., called it “shameful.” (And perhaps he would be the one to quickly recognize shameful behavior.)
But the objection to political discussions around the anniversary of the attacks is one that is worth scrutiny. The events of Sept. 11 affected all of us on a supremely intense level. For some, it strengthened our religious faith, while others could not reconcile the day’s events with their idea of a loving God. It changed our philosophies, our thoughts of our fellow Americans, our view of the world and our place in it.
So why wouldn’t it affect our politics?
On Sept. 10, 2001, Washington was full of elected officials, appointees, wonks, political professionals and media voices who were quite comfortable with the politics of the 1990s.
Health care appeared to be the dominant issue, while the “culture wars” — such a juvenile and silly use of the word “war,” in light of today’s world — raged over gays, guns and abortion. Foreign policy was an afterthought. The country actually had furious debates over “Midnight Basketball” programs, school uniforms, what the definition of “is” was. The summer of 2001 was indeed “the summer of threats”; sadly, we believed the primary threat was shark attacks.
And then, within 24 hours, almost everyone who had spent their career focusing on a domestic issue found their life’s work demoted to second tier. Suddenly, terrorism experts like Peter Bergen and Bruce Hoffman, and reporters who had been on this beat for years like John Miller, became the in-demand talking heads.
The hot positions in the cabinet were no longer Treasury, EPA and Education; the secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Adviser became the face of the Bush administration. Suddenly what was taught in Pakistani madrassas was almost as important as what was taught in American schools.
There is no going back to the Sept. 10 political world. And that means we must consider, and discuss, the parties’ differing views on how best to fight the war on terror.
All lawmakers would claim that they want the same thing — to win the war, to defeat al-Qaida and for Americans to live free from fear.
But our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle — and despite political differences, they are our friends — have yet to bridge a gap between their views and the views of a majority of the American people. Many on the left find wiretapping of domestic phone lines inherently outrageous; Americans generally trust the FBI to tap the right phones and not abuse their power.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was sufficiently outraged enough over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to compare the guards there to Nazis; most Americans would prefer to see Jack Bauer do his worst to the likes of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of Sept. 11.
The Democrats continue to speak of the United Nations as if it is a coherent, well-managed, hardworking force for peace in the world. Anyone who has paid attention will acknowledge that the institution is hobbled by jaw-dropping corruption and incompetence and paralyzed by internal divisions and indecision. Americans cannot entrust their safety to the U.N., no matter how much we wish it were better than it is.
Finally, Ned Lamont, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Connecticut who topped incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman by four percent in the primary, contended, “America is stronger when we work with our allies and negotiate with our enemies.”
Which enemy would Lamont like to negotiate with? Al-Qaida? Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedijijad? Hezbollah’s Nasrallah? We’re attempting to negotiate with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il; launching missiles in a tantrum is one of the dictator’s negotiating tactics.
In 2006, as in 2002 and 2004, the American people face a choice between a party whose views on the war on terror are flawed, but serious, and a party whose views may sound good, but are fundamentally unserious.
We will see what they decide. But the results in the first two cycles after Sept. 11 were quite clear; we should not be surprised if this year we find similarly clear results.
Jim Geraghty, a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and is the author of “Voting to Kill: How 9/11 Launched the Era of Republican Leadership.”
