Olbermann might be the most courageous broadcaster on television after Stephen Colbert, as his criticism of the administration has always been fact based and unflinching. I just watched his editorial commentary about 9/11, the lack of a memorial on Ground Zero, and the administration in general and was floored. It is, by far, the most eloquent commentary I’ve seen from Olbermann.
I’ve excerpted a part below. Olbermann’s overall metaphor doesn’t necessarily work for me, but this section, the meat of this editorial, summarizes the pain and futility of this administration. I’ve written before that I also will never forgive or forget how this president destroyed that moment of unity after 9/11. It wasn’t just our nation but the world that was united, an improbable opportunity to change the world in the ashes of tragedy. It was the first time NATO invoked Article 5 of the treaty declaring our nation under attack. Le Monde ran the headline “We are all Americans now” and nearly every leader of every country expressed their support and sympathy.
In the years since, we have gone from neighbor to pariah, from “Nous sommes tous Américains” to Freedom Fries, and from chasing bin Ladin to chasing phantom WMD. As Olbermann eloquently points out, the President chose to use 9/11 as a wedge issue. It simply became a political tool that was used to badger Democrats into submission and to bolster numbers at the polls. Every time he invokes the memory of those that perished to pursue a domestic political agenda, every photo op, every claim that critics have “forgotten the lessons of 9/11″ cheapens their memory. It reduces them to props in a political game, and it’s despicable.
This is why, when the President speaks of bipartisanship, we should reflect upon the past five years and examine our “bipartisanship” moments on the most important issue of our time. Bipartisanship brought us the war in Iraq because of several deftly timed votes. Bipartisanship brought us zero accountability in government. When the President speaks of bipartisanship, he speaks only of bipartisanship that furthers his political agenda.
As he did today, the President will invoke bipartisanship in the weeks and months to come to stave off electoral losses. I hope all of us, Republicans, Democrats and Independents recognize that for what it is. Many incumbents, including our own Senator here in Connecticut, are joining the President’s chorus, hoping that claims of bipartisanship also absolve them of accountability. We owe it to ourselves and to our nation to vote for accountability. Hopefully, then, we can get the job done, both at Ground Zero and in the hills of Pakistan, wherever bin Ladin might be.
Here’s the section I mentioned. Watch the whole editorial. You won’t be sorry.
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is, its symbolism — of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it… was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, “bi-partisanship” meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, “validate the strategy of the terrorists.”
They promised protection, and then showed that to them “protection” meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is “lying by implication.”
The impolite phrase, is “impeachable offense.”
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space… and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible — for anything — in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever “spin” 9/11.
