Following a lot of hype and exercised politicos, I decided to watch the ABC movie “The Path to 9/11” tonight. Much of it was plodding and tried too hard to weave every piece of evidence into a colossal failure of American presidents and intelligence services. If only the million parts to this puzzle were so simple I suppose the people who try to keep us safe wouldn’t need the benefit of hindsight the producers had to do their job.
This isn’t to say a lot of clues weren’t missed, I just think all of them added up miss the main point: Five years ago today was Day 1, and it changed everything. While the politicians look for blame and conduct endless reviews of procedure and chain of evidence, the real story is how America bundled together for a little while following the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Sure, many of us have regressed to our old pre-9/11 ways and reacted as partisans instead of Americans, but there are too many stories caught on the record representing heroics, kindness, patriotism and singular purpose to be swept away in the bickering that has become all too common.
History teaches each of us important lessons and, for that reason, ABC’s decision to put out a movie that focuses on what led up to the attacks in New York and Washington will be useful to all those with short memories. I suspect the debate will now center around what was edited and changed to suit the prickly sensitivities of the Clinton Administration, but one thing can be said about the behavior of so many people on that fateful day five years ago: crisis is the best editor of the human spirit.
5 comments:
I didn't get to see the movie, though I very much wanted to. TiVO and recordable DVDs I don't have. I am still doing the VCR routine, and after all these years, screwed up the programing of it. I like your summation better and now don't feel bad about missing it. I agree with what you have to say about what so many of the important stories were about on 9/11/2001: heroics, kindness, patriotism, and singular purpose. Thanks for the reminder.
Well put Laz, eloquent as usual. My son-in-law says it the best, "Americans are fickle".
We quickly forget and go back to burying our heads in the sand and expect someone else to 'handle it'. We have this short attention span in the world today, technology has afforded us the ability to nolonger ponder anything. Instant gratification and move on, thus my theory on why we have no passion as a country any longer (well a few of us do), we don't have the enduring collective strength at focusing as we did years ago after Pearl Harbor. We were decisive and everyone (exept for some in hollywierd) were on board at taking it to the enemy. United as a nation, United States, does that ring a bell?
Yes things did not go well leading up to 9|11, finger pointing aside, you said it the best, partisans instead of Americans, this is where it needs to end or it will surely be our end.
It was fun though to watch how the left reacted when this 9/11 movie focused on them compared to the other way around with Michael Moores debacle, Fahrenheit 9/11 came out and attacked the right. Besides that, thanks for your commentary of the movie. I Tivo'd it but will not waste my time watching it just as I didn't spend one dime to see Moores flick.
I am in Washington DC right now and it occurs to me that Clinton did do something to react to the threat of terroism: he made sure he saved his own butt. Before the 1993 attack on the WTC, you used to be able to drive on Pennsylvania Ave. past the White House. Fearing the road was too close to the WH enterance, Clinton had the street barricaded and it is no longer possible to drive on the Penn Ave side of the WH. So it seems he was at least aware there was a problem.
Alas all of what you say is true,
but when one looks at the complete
picture; there is more than enough
"blame" to be spread around both
Clinton & Bush..... Let us hope that those in power will LEARN from
the errors and mistakes that have been made.....
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