The Years of Shame
Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te 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.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-of-shame/
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http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/more-about-the-911-anniversary/
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Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te 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.
I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-of-shame/
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More About the 9/11 Anniversary
It looks as if I should say a bit more about yesterday’s anniversary. So:
The fact is that the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America – a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It’s probably worth pointing out that I’m not saying anything now that I wasn’t saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there’s nothing I’ve done in my life of which I’m more proud.
It was a time when tough talk was confused with real heroism, when people who made speeches, then feathered their own political or financial nests, were exalted along with – and sometimes above – those who put their lives on the line, both on the evil day and after.
So it was a shameful episode in our nation’s history – and it’s one that I can’t help thinking about whenever we talk about 9/11 itself.
Now, I should have said that the American people behaved remarkably well in the weeks and months after 9/11: There was very little panic, and much more tolerance than one might have feared. Muslims weren’t lynched, and neither were dissenters, and that was something of which we can all be proud.
But the memory of how the atrocity was abused is and remains a painful one. And it’s a story that I, at least, can neither forget nor forgive.
Update: Greg Sargent documents a bit of the history.
The fact is that the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America – a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It’s probably worth pointing out that I’m not saying anything now that I wasn’t saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there’s nothing I’ve done in my life of which I’m more proud.
It was a time when tough talk was confused with real heroism, when people who made speeches, then feathered their own political or financial nests, were exalted along with – and sometimes above – those who put their lives on the line, both on the evil day and after.
So it was a shameful episode in our nation’s history – and it’s one that I can’t help thinking about whenever we talk about 9/11 itself.
Now, I should have said that the American people behaved remarkably well in the weeks and months after 9/11: There was very little panic, and much more tolerance than one might have feared. Muslims weren’t lynched, and neither were dissenters, and that was something of which we can all be proud.
But the memory of how the atrocity was abused is and remains a painful one. And it’s a story that I, at least, can neither forget nor forgive.
Update: Greg Sargent documents a bit of the history.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/more-about-the-911-anniversary/
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History's Smallest Monster
How the New York Times's star columnist commemorates 9/11.
By JAMES TARANTO
At 8:41 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, most Americans were completely unaware of the world-changing terror that was about to unfold at the World Trade Center. One group that had some inkling had five minutes to live. Eighty-nine of the 92 passengers and crewmen on American Airlines Flight 11 were killed at 8:46, when Islamist terrorists crashed the Boeing 767 into the center's north tower (reportedly the hijackers had already stabbed or slashed the other three to death).
At 8:41 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2011, former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, star columnist of the New York Times, had something he wanted to say: "Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?" Krugman began his post on the Times website yesterday morning. "Actually, I don't think it's me, and it's not really that odd."
So far, so obvious. Of course the commemorations are subdued. Altogether, just under 3,000 people died in the coordinated attacks of 9/11: at the trade center, whose south tower was hit 17 minutes later; at the Pentagon, and in a field in Western Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 crashed after passengers overpowered the hijackers, presumably saving the intended target on the ground.
Some of the victims of 9/11 were children, and most of the adults were in the prime of life. In the normal course of events, they would still be with their loved ones 10 years later. Thus yesterday's rituals mourned losses that were sudden and that remain immediate. Ecclesiastes teaches that "there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens . . . a time to mourn and a time to dance." Americans danced in May, when Osama bin Laden was finally killed, but yesterday was a time to weep. So of course the 9/11 memorials were subdued.
That's not what Krugman had in mind, however. For him, it is never time to be silent and always time to hate:
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.
Giuliani and Bush "raced to cash in on the horror"? How? Krugman doesn't say. (We'll concede his point regarding Kerik, currently in federal prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges including tax fraud. But dwelling on Kerik's malefactions seems awfully petty on 9/11.)
In any case, was shame really the reason the 9/11 ceremonies were subdued? Tom Maguire says no:
I watched a bit of the memorial service at Ground Zero. Two strangers would go through about six names from the alphabetized list; then they would read off the name of their father, mother, brother, sister, niece, or whatever, say a few words, and move off-stage. Some of the readers were totally composed, but most got a bit choked up when they got to their loved one. Watching twenty year-olds say good-bye to a mother they lost when they were ten isn't easy, but watching a forty year old cop lose it when saluting his father is not so easy even for a cold-hearted, insensitive right-wing troglodyte like me.
Now, I suppose it is possible that the family members were choking up because they were reflecting on the Iraq War and the grim reality that Gitmo remains open. Or perhaps they were subdued by concerns over the Patriot Act and warrantlesss wiretapping. I am not smart or sensitive enough to be a lib like Krugman, but I didn't see it that way.
It's also hard, at this late date, to credit Krugman's argument that the Bush administration and "neocons" are solely to blame for the breakdown of national unity in the years after 9/11. Immediately after the attacks, support for Bush policies was overwhelming: The Patriot Act, for instance, passed the House 357-66 and the Senate 98-1. A year later, the authorization to use military force in Iraq drew strong (though far from unanimous) bipartisan support. It was backed by 81 House Democrats and 29 Senate Democrats.
To the extent that terror policy ended up polarizing the parties, then, it was because Democrats changed their minds. Arguably they eventually profited politically from doing so. At the very least, it did not prevent them from winning big victories in the elections of 2006 and 2008.
Yet as we noted in our Weekend Interview with Michael Mukasey, Barack Obama--who as a state senator, a U.S. senator and a presidential candidate was a harsh critic of Bush administration terror policies--as president has proved unable or unwilling to make any major changes in those policies, with the exception of interrogation. (The Bush administration had already ended the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program; its successor cut the CIA out of interrogation altogether.)
In some cases, notably Guantanamo and civilian trials for terrorists, Obama has continued the Bush policies in spite of his own inclinations, under pressure from Congress. Yet that pressure began in 2009-10, when Obama's own party had huge majorities in both houses--suggesting that the country is after all fairly unified, that Obama is out of step, and that the Democrats' move to the left between about 2003 and 2008 was merely opportunistic and ideological.
Krugman goes on to observe that beside Bush, Giuliani and Kerik, "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?"
![[botwt0912]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-PP232_botwt0_C_20110912122244.jpg)
The man who loves to hate
He has half a point here. We remember one professional pundit who behaved quite badly, writing on Sept. 14, 2001: "It seems almost in bad taste to talk about dollars and cents after an act of mass murder," he observed, then went ahead and did so: "If people rush out to buy bottled water and canned goods, that will actually boost the economy. . . . The driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings."
That was former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, who added that "the attack opens the door to some sensible recession-fighting measures," by which he meant "the classic Keynesian response to economic slowdown, a temporary burst of public spending. . . . Now it seems that we will indeed get a quick burst of public spending, however tragic the reasons." He went on to denounce the "disgraceful opportunism" of those who "would try to exploit the horror to push their usual partisan agendas"--i.e., conservatives who he said were doing exactly what he was doing.
Krugman concludes his 10th-anniversary objurgation as follows:
The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.
I'm not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
As the Village Voice's Nick Greene sums it up: "I need to get something off my chest today, but you can't." Blogger Ed Morrissey adds:
After reading this, you seriously have to remind yourself that the New York Times pays Krugman to write it; this wouldn't even pass muster for a Letter to the Editor at most newspapers. It's so trite, sad, and cliched that it's hardly worth the effort to rebut. He's mailing this in from 2003.
In fact, we found exactly the post from Sept. 11, 2003, that captures the sentiments Krugman is expressing now. It came from a young Josh Marshall, proprietor of TalkingPointsMemo.com, who described his reaction to a CNN documentary on 9/11:
Watching brought me back to the newness and rawness of those first hours and days. . . . I thought [President Bush] served admirably in those first days.
As the documentary moved toward the aftermath, I wondered whether those thoughts of mine would seep into the present to color what's happening today.
They didn't.
What I felt wasn't continuity but the jarring contrast, the cheap, obvious lies, the hubris, the tough-talk for low ends, not so much the mistakes as the tawdriness of so much of what's happened, especially over the last eighteen months.
Marshall weighed in again yesterday, with considerably more maturity than Krugman. Avoiding the temptation "to relitigate Iraq," he instead made the interesting observation that the 9/11 attacks were "simply too much barbarity and aggression with too few to punish":
The immediate perpetrators died in the attacks, embracing and thus stealing away from us whatever degree of punishment was possible. And while there were many more people planning, working money transfers and providing other kinds of support, still . . . relative to the enormity of the violation, just too few. It goes to a primitive part of ourselves. But you could hunt down and kill every one of them and somehow it still wouldn't be enough.
That may explain why, even a decade later, someone like Krugman sees 9/11 as an occasion to lash out at his domestic political opponents. "Everybody's angry, to judge from my email, about Paul Krugman's typo-burdened 9/11 screed," writes Glenn Reynolds. (For at least 15 hours after Krugman posted it, the screed referred to "te atrocity.")
Reynolds offers some advice: "Don't be angry. Understand it for what it is, an admission of impotence from a sad and irrelevant little man." Indeed. That post was monstrous, but it was trivial in equal measure. Paul Krugman is history's smallest monster.
\"A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy."
- Paul Krugman, Pass the Bill, 17 December 2009
“I was nervous until they finally called it on Election Night. We had an Election Night party at our house, thirty or forty people. The econ department, the finance department, the Woodrow Wilson school. They were all very nervous, so they were grateful we were having the party, because they didn’t want to be alone. We had two or three TVs set up and we had a little portable outside fire pit and we let people throw in an effigy or whatever they wanted to get rid of for the past eight years.”
'If Obama Called for Endorsing Motherhood Republicans in the House Would Oppose It'
"If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better..."
"[S]lashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker."
"But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse."
"The cult that is destroying America...No, the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism...You have to ask, what would it take for these news organizations and pundits to actually break with the convention that both sides are equally at fault? This is the clearest, starkest situation one can imagine short of civil war."
- Paul Krugman, The Cult That Is Destroying America, New York Times, 26 July 2011
"Slashing spending at a time when the economy is deeply depressed would destroy hundreds of thousands and quite possibly millions of jobs."
"Some years down the pike, we’re going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes."
- Paul Krugman, ABC's This Week, 14 November 2010
"In short, Europe continues to be a big-government sort of place. And that’s why it’s important to get the real story of the European economy out there. According to the anti-government ideology that dominates much U.S. political discussion, low taxes and a weak social safety net are essential to prosperity. Try to make the lives of Americans even slightly more secure, we’re told, and the economy will shrivel up — the same way it supposedly has in Europe. But the next time a politician tries to scare you with the European bogeyman, bear this in mind: Europe’s economy is actually doing O.K. these days, despite a level of taxing and spending beyond the wildest ambitions of American progressives."
"I actually I think it may be necessary to take this up to the limit because the fact of the matter…(And, default?)...Possibly if we have complete, if we have demands for a large change in policy, under threats of debt limit, this has to be the point where you say, 'No, we don't believe in letting hostages be taken.' Let me make my case here. Okay, let me just say, we have an enormous budget dispute. We have vastly opposed poles in policy. That is not something we should resolve with a, you know, with a bomb hanging over our head. It's not something we should try and change. And so Democrats have to make clear that they’re not going to let themselves be blackmailed in that way."
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