Hindsight

It's striking how critics are willing to operate on hindsight, shamelessly, and apparently without feeling the slightest pangs of guilt.

The media today, for example, is full of stories about how screwed up and incompetent the response to 911 was in the first minutes of the attack. There were all kinds of problems getting fighter jets scrambled into position to shoot down the airliners before they could crash into the WTC and Pentagon.

Let's be realistic. The way history actually works is that, as a practical matter, some things first have to happen in order to make other things possible. It is only the fact that those planes caused the death and destruction they did that now makes it possible to shoot one down in a similar situation.

Who knew whether that first plane was actually going to crash into the WTC? At what point in its flight path could anyone have concluded that beyond a reasonable doubt? If it had been shot down, the impeachment of Bush would have been cranking up before the bodies of the passengers had hit the ground. Everything is different now, but only because of hindsight of how things proceeded that day.

Byron

The Intelligentsia Left

Could any American watch this with dry eyes?

Jim responds: "How many have put such events behind them and returned to fantasy land?"

It's worse than that, I'm afraid.

If I try hard enough, I can imagine reaching some level of understanding of what motivates these killers. Some intense history of religious indoctrination, constant repetition of a twisted version of history, resentment, and hate pounded into your skull by people of authority. It's possible to envision a single-minded, murderous fanaticism taking root that way in some individuals who might be especially susceptible by nature. I can get some inkling of a feeling of insight into that.

What I can't understand is the shameful way the intelligentsia left in our own society has acted during this time. I'm at a loss, it's beyond me. Partisan politics is one thing, but what's gone on and continues to go on among well- educated and privileged left liberals is past any excuse in its sheer, hateful, ignorant irresponsibility. I thought I was pretty cynically realistic about people and what you can expect out of them, but this has been an education. I will never forgive these people, never. At this point, I'd say I've lost about half of my friends over this, many going back more than 20 years. Good riddance, and no sleep lost. There is a division in world views being exposed here that is wider and deeper than I had ever imagined it could be.