[Ed. note: As you may have surmised from the title, I actually wrote this entry a year ago, but I chickened out of publishing it at that time. I know my views on this subject are, shall we say, unorthodox, and given how charged the political air was last year because of the upcoming election, I just didn’t want to risk picking a fight. Nor did I want to callously offend or hurt the feelings of anyone whose emotions about the tragedy were still raw. I was thinking in particular of Brian Greenberg, a Loyal Reader I’ve never met in the flesh but who, thanks to the magic of the Intertubes, I’ve come to consider a friend. I know Brian feels the wounds of 9/11 far more keenly than I ever could, because he’s physically close to the place where it happened. He sees the altered New York skyline every day, whereas I have the luxury and comfort of distance.

But even he notes in his thoughts today that the country is finally moving on. And that, as much as anything, is what prompted me to dust off this old ramble and open it up to public view now. Because it no longer feels as inflammatory as it used to. Maybe that’s because we have a new president and a different subject now dominates the public discourse; maybe it’s simply one more year of hindsight. Or perhaps I’m misjudging the situation and I’m about to set off a rhetorical bomb. I hope not…]

I wasn’t planning to write anything about the anniversary of 9/11 because — frankly, and at great risk of sounding like a heartless bastard — it’s not something I think about much anymore. Seriously, I drove past a grassy field filled with American flags this morning on my way to the train station and I actually had a moment where I thought to myself, “now what the hell is that all about?” I had utterly forgotten what today was. I guess that means I’ve moved on, eh?

The truth is, though, I never felt that connected to it to begin with. That’s not to say I felt nothing on that horrible day now seven years gone. I was shocked and horrified and scared, the same as everybody else. I live right below the approach lanes for Salt Lake International Airport — there are usually five planes stacked up in the distance to the south of my house, waiting to come in — and I remember how deeply unsettling the quiet was, how empty the sky was, during those first few days when there was no air travel. But where so many of my fellow Americans seemed to almost immediately transmute whatever they were feeling into belligerence — an unquenchable anger and the need to hit someone back hard — I felt only sorrow. For the dead, for our lost landmarks, and for the changes I knew would be coming. I’ve spent the last seven years feeling like a stranger in my own country, like something was wrong with me, because I just didn’t seem to be experiencing the same emotions, or at least the same intensity of emotions, as everybody around me.

Before I go any farther, let me state for the record that I mean no disrespect to anyone or their feelings or their losses. I don’t mean to diminish what anyone else felt or continues to feel as a result of 9/11. And I sure as hell don’t want to offend anyone. I’m just talking about my feelings, with the full knowledge that I am in an apparent minority on these matters.

Now here’s where I piss off a whole bunch of my readers anyway, by admitting that I am deeply uncomfortable with the way our country handles this anniversary.

Continue Reading…

I have neither the time nor the temperament right now for a big political debate, but I would like to pose a question:

What do you suppose would’ve happened a couple years ago if a Democrat had interrupted a major policy speech on the floor of the Senate by President George W. Bush to call him a liar, as Republican Representative Joe Wilson did to President Obama last night?

I’m pretty confident that Democrat would’ve been denounced as an unpatriotic, disrespectful boor, if not accused of outright treason. He would’ve been shamed into making multiple and ever-more humiliating apologies, because the first one would not suffice for the grievous offense he had committed against the very foundations of our Republic. Ultimately, if the right-wing talk-radio types had their way, that incautious man would’ve been hounded from office and sent back to wherever he came from with his tail between his legs.

But we all know that’s not going to happen to this Wilson jackass, don’t we? I admire President Obama for being a bigger man than myself and accepting Wilson’s half-assed and obviously insincere apology, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m extremely frustrated with the Republican double-standard right now. Or don’t they believe any longer that the presidency demands respect, even if you don’t like the president himself? Isn’t that what we kept hearing all through Dubya’s eight years at the helm? And if that’s no longer the case, what happened to change their minds?

Oh, I remember… a Democrat won the election. And in Republican minds, a Democratic president is never, ever, under any circumstances legitimate.

Look, I know a lot of people agree with Wilson, probably including some of my own readers. You’re wrong if you do, but you’re entitled to be wrong here in our great country. So go ahead and be wrong. Tell your friends what you think; write about it on your blog; shout it from street corners; call your Congressperson and tell them; hell, stitch it into a sampler and hang it on the wall, if that’s your sort of thing. But when you’re sitting on the floor of the Senate while the President is speaking, show some manners and some freaking class and hold your goddamned tongue.

And before anyone reminds me that the Dems booed Shrubbie during his 2005 State of the Union, yeah, I know. They were rude, too. The difference there is that they hadn’t spent eight years yammering on about how the president’s political opponents needed to show respect and deference to a man they couldn’t stand, only to turn around and do the same damn thing when the shoe was on the other foot. And anyway, doesn’t anyone remember the Repubs booing Clinton? Seems to me the truly bad manners started right around the time Newt Gingrich and his buddies swept into office and decided they were going to hold their breath and stamp their feet until they got they way.

All of which is much more than I intended to say when I started this. As I noted, I’m very frustrated with all the bullshit right now, and with the Democrats’ perennial inability to effectively counter it…

This is probably funny (or sad, take your pick) only to residents of my fair state (or at least to people who know it well), but I can’t resist passing it along anyway. From Paul Rolly’s column today in the Salt Lake Tribune, a Jeff Foxworthy-style reader comment in response to something Rolly wrote a couple days ago:

You know you’re in Utah when » The lead-footed set the speed limits, teetotalers are in charge of alcoholic beverage control, planning and zoning is handed over to the developers, the descendants of polygamists campaign to restrict marriage to one man and one woman, and you’re told if you don’t like it you can just leave.

Too true, too true.

That last one is especially irksome to those of us who were born and raised here, who love the landscape and climate and history of this place, and who have roots here every bit as deep as any Church authority, but who don’t happen to share the prevailing cultural and political mindset of this place. Uh, no, I’m not going anywhere, this is my home, too. How about YOU learn to play nice with others?

Not that I’m bitter or anything.