(Fred Weinberg/The Penny Press) – Christmas Eve was kind of a slow news day and I ended up on the National Geographic Channel. They had a special, made in 2009, dealing with Air Force One.
Much of that special was devoted to the events of September 11, 2001 and the actions of then President George W. Bush.
Since we are headed into an election year, it dawned on me that, whatever you think of President Bush’s politics, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind on that day or for the rest of his Presidency that the grown-ups were in charge.
Contrast that with today.
We have a completely politicized Department of so-called Justice which is doing the bidding of the Committee to Re-elect the President.
We have an Attorney General who dismisses any detractors as being racist because it happens that he and the President are Black.
We have a completely politicized Environmental Protection Administration that sees its job as reducing mankind’s impact on the world. You know, as if we didn’t exist.
We have a President who has not forced Congress to give him a budget in TWO YEARS.
We have a President who took a round-the-world apology tour, apologizing for whatever it was that our nation has, in his humble opinion, done wrong, operating on the apparent theory that if we’re just nicer to terrorists, they’ll leave us alone.
We have a President whose disrespect for our only friend in the Middle East, Israel, is obvious and occasionally stated when he thought the microphones were shut off.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
We have a President who is not a grown-up. Whose view of the world is shaped by people like William Ayres, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeremiah Wright and a host of 1960s hippies who have, likewise, never really grown up.
What do you think Barack Obama would have done on September 11, 2001, had he been President?
Well, here’s what Senator Barack Obama said on September 19, 2001:
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe–children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
Here is what George W. Bush said on September 14, 2001:
Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.
War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing.
He also said:
On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation, and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.
As we have been assured, neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, can separate us from God’s love. May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own. And may He always guide our country.
God bless America.
I’ll leave it to you to decide who was a grown-up and who is not, but, suffice it to say that for me, 2012 is about putting the grown-ups back in charge,
I would also say that any of the Republicans running with the exception of Ron Paul fall into that category.
