On 9/11, Rightbloggers Denounce America’s Mortal Enemies: Democrats and Paul Krugman

On the 10th anniversary weekend of the September 11 attacks, every single living American blogger wrote a 9/11 memorial post. (Those who did not have been drummed out of the union.)

Rightbloggers’ 9/11 posts are always interesting, so we figured they’d be extra-good for 9/11 X. We were not disappointed. While some mercifully contented themselves with anodyne reminiscences (“On this day we remember those who died and those who became heroes, during that tragic wake up call,” etc), many took the occasion to reflect on the treacherousness of America’s sworn enemies, namely Democrats and liberals.

At Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government, for example, John Nolte informed us that “9/11 Only Paused the Left’s Attack on America.”

On 9/11/01, Nolte admitted, he “mourned,” but “ten years on, my emotions have evolved… Because for ten years I’ve watched the Left, much of Hollywood and almost all of the news media turn against our country for mercenary, partisan political reasons.”

As Big Government readers take it on faith that their political opponents are traitors, Nolte didn’t bother to explain. But he did brag on his prescience: back in 2001, he said, when “solemn celebrities hosted benefit concerts and Democrats sang ‘God Bless America’ on the Capitol steps, I knew it wouldn’t last and that over time they would become America’s enemy within in the fight to protect herself.” See, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, you didn’t fool John Nolte!

“I never even took a moment to hope I was wrong,” added Nolte. And we expect he never will.

Pajamas Media’s Stephen Green informed readers that at 9/11, the “liberal conceit” was that “the attacks that morning were somehow our fault, and that it wasn’t an act of war.” (Again, no citations.) Green did think it was an act of war, and that our response in Iraq, though a “mess,” nonetheless turned that country into a “deathtrap for jihadis” (among many others, he might have mentioned).

But Green lamented that President Bush never “waged the war in accordance with his own (correct) formulation of the Axis of Evil” — which some of you may remember included Iraq, North Korea, and Iran, but to which Green appended (apparently on the authority of columnists, Israeli officials, and Joe Lieberman) “Iran’s junior partners, Syria and various Palestinian groups.” Green wished Bush had authorized “a long, rapid march from the beaches of Syria to the streets of Tehran, destroying all government buildings — and any military forces stupid enough to stand in the way.”

Ah, what might have been! “Would it have worked? Who knows,” admitted Green, “but the troops would have been home by Christmas, their casualties in the hundreds not thousands, and we’d be a trillion or two dollars richer.” Well, maybe next Republican administration.

Some thoughts were spared for the home front. Michelle Malkin worried that kids today are learning “all the wrong 9/11 lessons… too many children have been spoon-fed the thin gruel of progressive political correctness over the stiff antidote of truth.”

What gruel did she mean? “Social justice educators in high schools and colleges across the country indoctrinate American students into viewing our volunteer armed forces as victims, monsters and pawns in a leftist ‘social struggle,'” Malkin claimed. As an example she cited her own daughter’s education; “in second grade,” said Malkin, “her teachers read touchy-feely stories about peace and diversity to honor the 9/11 dead. They whitewashed Osama bin Laden, militant Islam and centuries-old jihad out of the curriculum.”

We thought lessons for second graders on militant Islam and jihad had been mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act, but no: “a special 9/11 curriculum distributed in New Jersey schools advises teachers to ‘avoid graphic details or dramatizing the destruction’ wrought by the 9/11 hijackers,” wrote Malkin. Imagine, thinking seven-year-olds couldn’t handle graphic descriptions of mass murder! They’ve seen worse on Nickelodeon.

Malkin knew better: She took her daughter “out of a cesspool of academic and moral relativism” and into “a reality-grounded, rigorous charter school” where “many of the students are children of soldiers and servicemen and women…” Malkin did not mention how this influenced the curriculum; maybe they just run video loops of people falling out of the World Trade Center towers throughout the day.

Daily Pundit Bill Quick shared his personal 9/11 memories. The first: “An Islam that believes America should be enslaved or destroyed attacked us in our own land and slaughtered three thousand of us.” Also, “domestic enemies of America who sympathized with the Muslim enemies doing everything they could to tear down a President trying to strike back at the Muslim enemies that had butchered us.” Plus, a “ruling class” that was “worrying more about the sensibilities and safety of Muslims in America than they cared about protecting America from Muslims who wished to destroy her and her people and their liberties.”

That Bin Laden has been killed did not impress Quick: “Our ruling class managed to shift the focus of cause to Osama bin Laden, the man from the vacuum,” he wrote, and in so doing “they created another great triumph for the Islam that wants to destroy America.”

(Back in 2002, Quick said, “Of course both bin Laden and Zawahiri are dead”; earlier this year, when Bin Laden was actually killed, Quick suggested that Obama tried to “countermand” the order; Quick also declared, “I want to gloat over the murderous Muslim’s ignominious, but much more merciful, death than those he slaughtered on 9/11 and at other times.” How times change, and how quickly.)

Instead of celebrating the end of the “cardboard character” Bin Laden, Quick bid that we recall “the Islam that still, today, wants to destroy America, still exists, and the Muslims who still, today, actively work to achieve that goal, still exist… I hate these Muslims who hate us, and I want to destroy them all.” Quick did not explain how he would distinguish these Muslims from those Muslims, but we get the feeling he’d be content to let God sort ’em out.

“For those of you on the left, feel free to Google ‘9/11/2001’ if the date doesn’t ring a bell for you,” helpfully advised Crush Liberalism. “All of us who weren’t in a drug-induced stupor recall exactly what we were doing when the attacks came and when we first got word of it.”

The way Crush Liberalism told it, bliss was it in that dawn to be alive: “In the days immediately following” 9/11, he wrote, “I had never seen patriotism and unity like that in my life, and I haven’t seen it since.”

But “then, three years later,” intoned Crush Liberalism as the music grew somber and solarized images of John Kerry played in slow motion, “the country was one state away (Ohio) from sending to the Oval Office a liberal Masshole with a shameful record of crapping on the American soldiers and palling around with Hanoi Jane.” And “seven years after that fateful day in 2001” — here the screen went black — “the unthinkable happened” and Obama was elected.

How could this have happened in the good old U.S. of A.? Because voting for Obama “was the ‘in’ thing to do,” explained Crush Liberalism, “so we could tell our friends and neighbors ‘See? I’m not racist! I voted for the black guy!'” (You may be sure Crush Liberalism never got caught up in that fad.) And “because [Obama] would give us more government goodies than the old dude…”

“I submit to you,” this patriot cried, “that the damage done by four years of liberal legislative assault and 2.5 years of socialist executive rule far exceeds the carnage that was experienced ten years ago.” Depends on your point of view, we guess. “As I watched the History Channel this week,” wept Crush Liberalism, “all those memories came rushing back to me, along with the realization that our country doesn’t learn its lessons well anymore.” Crush Liberalism then offered to “pray” for America, even though the nation has clearly disappointed and indeed disgusted him. Wasn’t that Christian of him?

This sort of thing made us grateful for merely peculiar posts like Don Surber’s about Bono from U2. Surber was enraged that the Irish singer had declared himself “a very proud American on 9/11… Even if you’re not American, everyone became an American that day.”

Millions of American claim to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, so we’d say fair enough. But not Surber. “Who in the heck does this pompous Irish think he is,” he raved, “standing in Canada and presuming that he is an American?… He is not even a Bono. His name is Paul David Hewson. He does not even pronounce the name right. That is a long O as in Sonny Bono, who was a true American son of legal immigrants who worked his way up from nothing…”

Naturally we thought this was a joke at first, but if it is, Surber omitted the punchline and instead offered a “point,” i.e., “I guess my problem is not with some Irish singer so much as it is with what he represents. I really don’t need a weekend of people preening about how tragic 9/11 was, as if no one else has those thoughts or feelings.” Surber then linked to a 9/11 column (“It was the beginning of a tumultuous decade”) by “my boss, Hanna Maurice,” of the Charleston, West Virginia Daily Mail. Well, at least she’s not Irish.

Though they described liberals as traitors all weekend, rightbloggers seemed genuinely surprised when liberals disagreed with their portrayal of post-9/11 realities.

When Andrew Sullivan, formerly a gung-ho warblogger, expressed doubts about America’s military response to 9/11 in a Newsweek article, Ron Radosh of Pajamas Media grumbled, “there is no attempt at balance, no essay from someone like Paul Wolfowitz, or Dick Cheney himself, or anyone in the Bush administration.” Gosh, who wouldn’t want to read that?

When columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a “Time to Leave 9/11 Behind” column (“The last decade was a detour that left our nation weaker, more divided and less certain of itself”), the Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto called him “E.J. ‘Baghdad Bob’ Dionne.” Taranto said Dionne “has his own ideological reasons for promoting complacency about the threat of Islamist terrorism” — namely, in Dionne’s own words, a desire that America focus instead on “a vibrant, innovative and sensibly regulated economy, on levelheaded fiscal policies, on the ability of our citizens to find useful work, on the justice of our social arrangements.”

In case you didn’t get that these are bad things, Taranto added, “That is, on an ever-expanding welfare and regulatory state, paid for by high taxes… and scrimping on defense. To justify the latter, it is necessary to minimize the threat.” We must admit, after years of reading in books like “1984” about leaders pumping up war hysteria to justify austerity on the home front, the idea of tyrants minimizing war threats in order to squander taxpayer money on poor people is a real change of pace.

But rightbloggers really went berserk when Paul Krugman ran a short post at the New York Times castigating “fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush,” and lamenting that “the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.” As this was not of the approved variety of 9/11 post — that is, it wasn’t about the menace of Muslims or Democrats — rightblogger response was fierce.

“If This is the Real Conscience of a Liberal, Liberals Are Disgusting,” said Erick Erickson of RedState. “Despicable Krugman… despicable little grunt,” foamed The Right Scoop. (Unlike Krugman, “We WILL allow comments to this post,” said TRS, “although admittedly I will have no patience with truthers and little patience for those who want to defend Krugman and sully the name of our heroes and those who stepped in to protect us because of 9/11.” Note it well, truthers and disbelievers in Prisoner 84888-054!)

“Vile liberal spew about how evil America has become… slimy, gutless assbiscuit,” counterpointed The Jawa Report. “Leftist Scumbag… What an asshole,” reasoned Weasel Zippers. “Craven, Cowardly Krugman Disgusts,” demurred the PJ Tatler. “Paul Krugman Hijacks 9/11,” posited The GW Patriot (“Krugman says that the atrocity has been ‘hijacked,'” added GWP. “…He’s right. And he need only look in the mirror to see the man to blame.” High-fives at GWP’s debate club!)

Fans of heavier analysis may prefer Conservative Refocus News’ “Point By Point Rebuttal to Paul Krugman’s Poisonous Liberalism On 9/11: The Years Of Shame.” “We do find it poignant,” said CRN, “that Krugman would seek to cast the blame on the ‘horrible hero’s’ of 9/11, being those whose first thought was to both protect and defend. This, no doubt, would include the many firefighters, policemen and first responders who also lost their lives. Krugman pretty much denigrates the memory of each and every one of these brave and heroic men and women.”

And there’s your rightblogger 9/11 takeaway: If you don’t love Bernie and Rudy and W, and don’t think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a good idea, then you hate the firemen and cops who died on September 11. Rightbloggers have indeed heeded the popular 9/11 message, “Never Forget,” but what they’ve never forgotten are the talking points they were using years ago about fifth columnists, “democracy whiskey sexy,” being either with them or with the terrorists, etc. And no wonder they remember that stuff so well — 9/11 was their greatest moment, the last time they could feel confident that everyone who mattered agreed with them. And God, wouldn’t they like it back again.