[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]Isn’t it fascinating that Dec. 7, nearly 70 years ago, is remembered with stone-faced reverence — from schoolchildren to Alzheimer’s patients — while Sept. 11, barely 8 years ago, carries scarcely more prestige than March 25?
The explanation is not mysterious:
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor precipitated a good war, sideline controversies notwithstanding. The Muslim takedown of the twin towers — perhaps with aid from President Bush, according to certain liberal doctrines, sparked Mr. Bush’s grossly political wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Reverence, with a patriotic sheen, never was associated with Sept. 11 — after the opening hours.
From the first breaths, America’s most prominent liberal commentators, by pen and voice, proclaimed two immutable truths and a third they find endlessly tantalizing:
• America was mainly responsible for ticking off the Muslim world because ever since Israel gained nationhood in1948, U.S. policy unswervingly has favored Jews.
• It was an accident of birth that the young men who planned the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans were Muslims —country-hick coincidence. Everyone knows that Islam is a religion of peace. The attackers just as easily could have been Lutherans, Methodists or even evangelicals dressed up as wash-allergic Muslims.
• Finally, somewhere in the pile of bodies of the lowdown perpetrators lurk those of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and possibly Rush Limbaugh. They had to know about it. They had to have something to do with it. It is common knowledge that Mr. Bush wanted to avenge his Daddy’s unfulfilled dream of conquering Iraq and attaching it to the ever expanding American empire.
Since Sept. 12, conservatives have been more disappointed than surprised how un-seriously liberals take Sept. 11. Liberals have been just as disappointed and unsurprised that conservatives were so swift to fault the gentle, peace-shlepping homemakers and hubbies in the Muslim culture.
Except for a few thousand bombs, a few thousand lies and a few thousand dead bodies in the past decade, Muslims at large beautifully have lived up to their reputation for sowing the seeds of serenity where ‘er they go, fragrant flowers at their feet, vanilla thoughts of brotherhood and unadulterated motherhood monopolizing their child-like minds.
Islam, the religion, and the Muslim culture have had no more stout defenders in their bloody history than American liberals. Never mind that before 2001, liberals could not have found Iraq on a wallmap, even if given a 30-minute head start. They still know less about the fundamentals of Islam than about global warming in Luxembourg or Sarah Palin’s next thoughts. But that has not stopped them from becoming permanent human shields in defense of all of the world’s Muslims, especially combatants, against charges great and small.
Dearly Beloved? Something Like That.
The Associated Press is routinely as liberal as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Further, the A.P.’s integrity repeatedly has been battered during the past decade because of distorted reporting from the Middle East and dishonest photography from the region.
Effectively the final surviving wire service, the A.P.’s notion of observing the sacredness of Sept. 11 was to distribute to its clients a 21-paragraph story declaring sympathy for Muslim “victims” of a feared backlash for what their fellow Muslims did.
No story, however, on families of the almost 3,000 legitimate victims.
Similarly, I suppose 68 years’ worth of banner stories in America’s leading newspapers that sympathetically portray Japanese American backlash victims — authentic victims — of Pearl Harbor are seared in your memory.
Oh, that’s right. Not necessary to write such stories. FDR, white humanitarian, bypassed the need for backlash. He threw the Japanese into detention camps, an inconvenience all liberals have erased from their historical memory, which they don’t think is sacred.
