Really, Mitt? Srsly?

Congratulations, Mitt Romney.  You did something no one else ever had before.  You inspired me to actually post a comment on the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the American East Coast.

While I could tick off quite a few memories about that 9/11, the one that stands out now is the silence that followed for about 36 hours.  No one started blaming other Americans for the attacks.  Even Jerry Falwell waited waited until the morning of 13 September to make his infamous remarks from Jerry Falwell on Pat Robertson's show.  The fact was that it took about that long just to figure out what had happened in Manhattan, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Here in 2012, Money Boo Boo couldn't wait.  Even before the assassination of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, he decides to attack the Obama administration for being "disgraceful" and suggests that the President would "sympathize with those who waged the attacks."  Sure, it's another neatly packaged set of lies, designed to please the racists and Dominionists in his base -- but that's not my point.  Why couldn't this wait a day or two?  Why couldn't Romney and the GOP respectfully mourn Steven's passing (and those of at least three other American diplomats), then launch the outrageous attack?

Why should I bother even asking those questions?  To make sense, you'd have to assume that Mitt Romney and his supporters had some decency.  That assumption is questionable, to say the least.

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The Defenders of 9/11

Mark Lennihan/AP, via the NPR Web site

When President Obama defended the Córdoba House project last Friday, I was sure that all the posturing from the GOP would have ended.  Silly me.  This isn't the party of Eisenhower, Nixon, or even Reagan; it's a loudmouthed collection of racists, Dominionists, warmongers and old-school fascists* who might well dismiss Joseph McCarthy as a commie pinko.  Of course, they were going to try turning Córdoba House into a campaign issue.  For Republican campaigners, there's nothing but win.  Who cares if innocent Muslims get demonized yet again? They aren't voting GOP anyway.  The real points are to (a) rally the teabagger base and (b)trick Democrats into demoralizing their base, again.

One thing I've yet to see, though, is a direct connection to "9/11" -- not the actual 2001 attacks, but the metaphorical cudgel that the Cheney-Bush cabal created from them.  I remember arguments with conservatives during the Bush years.  Anytime the right-winger sensed that he could no longer win an argument with logic, his inevitable response was to invoke 9/11.  Leave Iraq?  "No way; 9/11 changed everything."  End warrentless wiretapping? "9/11 changed everything."  Opposed to No Child Left Behind?  "Too bad; 9/11 changed everything."  [I'm not even making that last one up.]  For Bush's supporters, the attacks were a way to "unite" the nation behind even the worst Bush proposals.

But time has passed, Chimpy has retreated to Dallas and Cheney has gone back into hiding.  Most of us have put 9/11 the event in the past, where it belongs.  But in blocking Córdoba House, the Republicans are trying to bring back the trauma.  If they succeed, and they also take either house of Congress this November, they will have revived 9/11 as a weapon.  They didn't stop at Muslims the last time they used it, and there's no reason to believe they will this time, either.

In other words, the GOP must defend 9/11.  It's too important a tool for them to just let fade away.

* Supporters of increased corporate influence in government, like Mussolini and Pinochet.  Used properly, it's a more elegant word than the clunky "corporatist."

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More administrivia:  I've opened the two Victory Weighting pages to comments.  If you have more questions about the system, feel free to comment on either page.

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