seven years on

Tomorrow will mark the seven year anniversary of the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States. The day commercial U.S. airliners got flown into both World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and fell from the sky in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Just over a week ago Rudy Giuliani, the man who, at the time, was the mayor of the great city that was home to the towers, venomously hurled insults while at the same time instilled fear in the hearts of Americans as a keynote speaker of the Republican convention.

The Republicans, I would like to point out, were the ones who ignored the intelligence that warned us of the attacks, were in power and standing guard during the time of the attacks, misled the country about weapons of mass destruction, fabricated evidence linking Iraq to the attacks, have sent thousands of American troops to their death and have killed, misplaced and destroyed countless Iraqi civilian lives. Yet there was Giuliani in front of an Image of the New York City skyline repeating over and over his now familiar chant: nine eleven. Nine eleven. Shameless in his insinuation that if the American people choose to vote for the Democratic candidate further attacks will be imminent and American deaths will be on their conscience.

This should be reprehensible enough, in and of itself, but it's foul taste was quickly overpowered by a rancid helping of political theater served up the very next night. On a three story digital screen images of the nine eleven attack loomed super sharp, super clear, super sized and slow-mo over the thousands of self righteous, angry, white faces of the delegates. This tasteless spectacle did not honor the dead, did not honor the rescue workers or the families of those fallen but instead did exactly what it was created to do: frighten millions of television viewers.

After the tasteless spectacle and the o-so-familiar footage of the plane hitting the tower and the fireball bursting through glass and steel, the towers falling in on themselves, footage networks agreed several years ago should no longer be shown, appeared our hero. Aged, stiff, walking funny, smiling awkwardly, throwing insults and mentioning his war record of forty years ago over and over through gritted teeth. "My friends. My dear friends."

I wouldn't be recounting this reprehensible piece of propaganda and stage craft if it wasn't for the fact that tomorrow is the anniversary of that tragic event and the nefarious Republican spin machine can't think of anything better to talk about than lipstick!

Whether it's on Anita Bryant, Phylis Schlafly, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin or a pig; a rose by any other name is still a pig. Even if I don't agree with his positions shouldn't he be talking about energy, the economy, Iraq, or home foreclosures instead of celebrity and lipstick? Are these diversionary tactics really working? Where are the issues? Sleazy gutter politics and lies in the name of justice belittle the process and the very office in question.

I watched McCain in his little ball cap, looking like the powerless wizard exposed behind the curtain in Oz, he stiffly waddled before a backdrop that read ironically "country first" and I wondered; are people stupid or gullible enough to fall for this again or is prejudice and closed mindedness so deeply ingrained that they'd rather look the other way and allow corruption and criminality to continue to spread like a malignancy over our great land.

I'm sad about what happened seven years ago but today I'm sad about so much more.