Man of Shame

Paul Krugman at The New York Times:

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te [sic] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

Aside from all the baseless claims, what’s interesting to me about this is that 9/11 was the most unifying event of my lifetime. Sure, I’m only 24 years old, but for about a year after 9/11, it seemed like I could talk to anyone on the street and have two things in common: we despised the people who attacked us and were immensely grateful for our country and the people who protect it.

I’m not going to address Krugman’s points because he provides not a shred of evidence to back them up. I will make a point of my own though, regarding 9/11 becoming a wedge issue. It was a liberal—Harry Reid who voted for the war, turned around and voted to defund it. He then claimed we already lost and the surge was a failure while we still had men and women over there fighting.¹ He stuck to his guns even after other democrats were admitting the surge was a success.

All that, and we still have combat forces in Iraq under president Obama. Not a word from Harry Reid now on the urgency of getting out. 9/11 may have become a wedge issue, but not by any fault of president Bush or any other “fake heroes”.

UPDATE: Great comment from user Maguro over at Althouse:

Should we be ashamed of bombing the crap out of Libya, too? Inquiring minds want to know.

Brilliant question.