Visual source: Newseum
Jon Ralston:
Perhaps it is my own enduring cynicism that leaves me almost revolted by the flock of elected officials informing the public (through the media) of the tribute events they are attending this weekend. Many of these same people (yes, there are plenty of exceptions) have debased the memory of those who died a decade ago by spending the ensuing years making a mockery of the debate between security and liberty, of putting fealty to their party or re-election over loyalty to their country and by spawning an epidemic of hatred and ignorance that has fundamentally altered the body politic...
Much of this lingers and execrable tactics have multiplied. Groups now divide the country into “patriots” and everyone else, a noxious McCarthyism useful to raise money and deepen the divide.
Sickening tactics are hardly the province of the right, as we have seen the left move on to the new battlefield with equal — and often disproportionate — vitriol. Divide and win. Or not.
Ian Reifowitz:
It's easy now, almost three years later, to forget what a milestone it was to elect an African-American president.
Think, however, about how far away a dream that must have seemed to those rioting in the streets in April 1992, or those mourning in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was taken from us.
In 2011 Ellis Cose published "The End of Anger." He discovered a transformation had occurred in the way black Americans-both those who were economically successful and those struggling-felt about race relations.
Although racism had not vanished from our society, "black hopes, once held in check by the weight of prejudice and discrimination, have begun to soar free and ... black rage-corrosive, hidden, yet omnipresent-is ebbing."
Coming off a low point in the early 1990s, Sept. 11, 2001, gave us an opportunity to strengthen national unity and improve ties across ethnic lines among Americans, and we took it. Discrimination and severe racial disparities persist, and race relations are far from perfect, but something doesn't have to be perfect to be better than it was.
Progress that brings us closer to our goal is progress worth recognizing, because recognizing it helps encourage more progress.
Ian's a history prof and fellow kossack.
A press release message from some 9/11 heroes:
President Barack Obama’s call for a national investment in public safety in his speech September 8 will put fire fighters and paramedics back to work and will create safer communities around the country, generating a strong environment for local businesses to prosper and create even more jobs.
“President Obama last night proved to the public safety community that he gets it. His jobs proposal will put fire fighters back to work and prevent layoffs,” IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger said.
Remember them with jobs.
Speaking of jobs:
While the country's unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent, black unemployment has hit 16.7 percent, the highest since 1984.
EJ Dionne:
Our political system is not accustomed to the kind of battle going on now. President Obama has been slow to adjust to it. The voters are understandably mystified and frustrated by it. In the meantime, the economy sits on the edge of stagnation and something worse.
The president’s speech to Congress and the Republican presidential debate last week should have taught us that we are no longer in the world of civics textbooks in which our political parties split their differences and arrive at imperfect but reasonably satisfactory solutions.
Now we face a fundamental divide over the most basic questions: Is government good or bad? Can public action make the private economy work better, or are all efforts to alter the market’s course — by Congress, the president, the Federal Reserve — doomed to failure?
PPP:
It's clear at this point that if Clinton decided to run [in 2016] she would start out as the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination. Of course that was the case in 2008 too which is why these early polls are fun but not terribly predictive.
Mother Jones goes over why the American Hospital Association likes the idea of raising Medicare's age eligibility: cost shifting to private insurance which pays better. But it does not lower overall health costs.
The goal is to lower overall health care spending, including by beneficiaries, not cost shift to seniors.
Funny quote from Ben Smith:
Here's the list of Democrats quoted in this evening's Times story, "Democrats Fret Aloud Over Obama’s Re-election" who even vaguely support its thesis: Rep. Peter DeFazio, Rep. Elijah Cummings, DNC Member Robert Zimmerman, DNC member William George, DNC member Mannie Rodriguez, DNC member Jon Ausman. What, you aren't entirely familiar with these crucial party leaders? Google them. The gist of the story, though, is right .. And I'm not criticizing what's in fact a very timely story. The Times is hearing the same things we are -- that Democrats are worried. They'd be insane not to be worried. But ‘aloud’? The striking thing isn't that party discipline is breaking down in public. It's that party discipline is holding. I looked in vain for an Ed Rendell quote.
Bob Woodward on how seriously screwed up Dick Cheney is. This bit is about him arguing to take out the reactor in Syria despite weak evidence it was involved in weapons grade activity.
“Mike [Hayden]’s report clarified my decision,” Bush wrote, adding that he called then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who wanted the United States to destroy the reactor. Bush says he told Olmert, “I cannot justify an attack on a sovereign nation unless my intelligence agencies stand up and say it’s a weapons program.”
Bush didn’t reveal, however, that his vice president wanted a military strike in the face of “low confidence” intelligence that the reactor was part of a nuclear weapons program. Cheney said he wanted the United States to commit an act of war to send a message, demonstrate seriousness and enhance credibility — a frightening prospect given the doubts.
I knew a guy in high school chemistry class just like Cheney. He liked blowing things up. He didn't grasp that there were other things people could do with their time.