Wednesday, May 16, 2007
He's Like a Detuned Radio
It reminded me of the Saudi prince that gave me the $10 million. He did the same thing: "This is America at fault, the way America has outreach to the world." Look, it's real simple what happened. These people came here and killed us because of our freedom of religion, because of our freedom for women, because they hate us...If you're confused about this, I think you put our country in much greater jeopardy. The reality is, these people are planning to kill us because -- and this is hard for people to recognize, I usually hear this on the Democratic side, don't usually hear it on the Republican side -- you've got to face reality. If you can't face reality, you can't lead.
What audacity: to peddle such ignorant dreck and claim that those that don't buy in to such a misinformed narrative "can't face reality." It boggles the mind. Look, whether you're partial to Jim Henley's read, or my own (and really, there is much in common between the two), to suggest that we were attacked on 9/11 "because of our freedom of religion, because of our freedom for women, because they hate us" is the type of dysfunctional worldview that has led this country from one foreign policy blunder to the next over the past 6+ years.
It didn't take long for Giuliani to confirm my earlier suspicion: "For Giuliani and his ilk, al-Qaeda attacked us for our freedom or some other nonsense." Obvious, huh.
And this guy is the frontrunner for the Republican Party's nomination. Watching this type of shallow thought rewarded by so many of my fellow Americans stirs in me the same type of anxiety and exasperation I felt in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Can people really not grasp how very dangerous this kind of thinking is? Are we really doomed to make the same mistakes again and again like some eternally recurring nightmare?
Don't answer that.
