Given the Opportunity, the Right Can Offer No Defense for Politicizing 9/11

Conservatives own 9/11. No liberals died that day in that famously liberal city; no Muslims, no gays, no feminists, no environmentalists. The first responders who ran into those burning buildings, while everyone else ran for safety, had all burned their union cards. No union thugs died that day. Only rock-ribbed Republicans -- the only true Americans -- died on 9/11, because it's impossible for liberals to be heroes or patriots. Conservatives own 9/11.

Which explains why this post by New York liberal Paul Krugman was the worst thing ever:


What happened after 9/11 -- and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not -- was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits -- people who should have understood very well what was happening -- took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.


Sure, the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to engage in a long, pointless, expensive, bloody war in Iraq. Sure, we've seen torture become as American as apple pie. Sure, we've hatred of Muslims become twisted into something that pretends to be an American value. And of course, we've seen conservatives claim that liberals don't "get" fighting terrorism -- even after President Obama got Osama Bin Laden.

But is that any reason to point all of that out? The rightwing blogosphere says nay. Breitbart's Big Journalism rushes to familiar ground, playing the victim card against Krugman for writing about 9/11 on 9/11. At no point in a post dripping with outrage and grievance is a counter-argument made against Krugman's charges -- because, of course, there isn't one.


Anti-Muslim bigot Jim Hoft takes a similar approach, clucking over how "disgusting" the post is, without answering -- or even pretending to answer -- a single one of Krugman's charges. In fact, Hoft simply declares it awful, without even explaining why. Likewise, Erick Erickson.

If you need proof that even the right realizes there's no defense for their post-9/11 actions and policies, there ya go. They can't come up with one.

So, of course, they don't bother.

-Wisco