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August 6: A Day which shall live in infamy
It was but a short 6 years ago that newly-elected President Bush, taking one of his lengthy vacations on his "ranch" in Crawford, Texas, to "cut brush" was given the now infamous Presidential Daily Briefing, which said among other things "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US".
His respoonse: "You've covered your ass. Time to play golf."
Shortly over a month later, despite the frantic attempts of Richard Clarke and others to get Bush to focus on the problem of Islamic Terrorism, the primarily Saudi hijackers flew their planes into the Twin Towers in NYC, and the Pentagon. The last, so they tell us, was forced by its passengers to crash into a field in Pennsylvania.
That morning, Bush sat listening to My Pet Goat for an excruciatingly painful amount of time, after being told of the attacks by Andrew Card. You can see his ever-blank face turn grey with fear and finally, reluctantly, he turns to the situation at hand.
Once he turned his attention to the matter, he behaved in a characteristically Bushian manner: he avoided the press and hopped about by plane to various sites around the country, like some jackrabbit pursued by an imaginary Semi Tractor Trailer found only in its own fevered imagination. Instead, the memorable voice that day was Rudolph Giuliani and it would be such a fine moment for him, that he even now is basking in the glow of having at least said the right things on television. Of course, ask any firefighter from NYC about his true behavior that day and thereafter.
Since that day, the country has plunged into an intensely paranoid fear and Bush and his cronies have done everything possible to stoke the flames. He NEEDS Osama to stay in power, so he won't do what needs to be done, but instead has done everything he can to spread the terror himself, endlessly, repeatedly, to the very point of color-coding the official level of terror the citizens should feel, careful to never let that level subside. As a byproduct, the nation's famed freedoms and liberties have been cast aside and ridiculed, essentially influencing the hearts and minds of Americans in a fashion that must delight Osama bin Laden and his followers, if they, as Bush has often posited "hate us for our freedoms."
Steve Benen of the Carbetbagger Report has a noteworthy read on this ignoble anniversary.
In the end, of course, this never should have happened.