By:Jerry Burke
But between Sunday's massive protest and the traditional unleashing of the red, white and blue balloons, a lot was said at the convention. The theme was "Fulfilling America's Promise: Building a Safer World and a More Hopeful America."
Safety! Hope! Compassion! And oh yeah, by the way ... SEPTEMBER 11!!!
If you were skeptical about the Republicans holding their convention only a few miles from the hallowed ground where the World Trade Center once stood, you were told to rest easy. They weren't there to politicize the greatest tragedy to befall the homeland. To even think that would be insane! How dare you make such charges!
What a difference a week makes, eh?
The speakers, especially those in prime time, made no bones about the image they wanted people in that audience and across the nation to leave with: George "Women" Bush (isn't that what the W stands for?) standing atop the rubble of the twin towers three days after they fell, bullhorn in hand, telling firefighters that he could hear them. "And the people who knocked these buildings down," he exclaimed as the EPA-approved smoke rose in the background, "will hear all of us soon."
Rudy Giuliani told the delegates and the TV audience that when he first saw the towers in flames, he thought, Thank God George Bush is our president. Remember how scared you were then, the elephants asked? Well, stay scared! And vote Bush!
I do remember how scared I was that day. I also honestly remember feeling better when the president stood before the country two days later and said, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority, and we will not rest until we find him.
"I want justice," he said. "There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" That poster certainly made the rounds, did it not? Where are those posters now, I wonder.
Only a few months later, as the administration began to focus its attention on Iraq, Bush was asked about Osama. "I don't know where bin Laden is," he said bluntly. "I have no idea, and I really don't care. It's not that important."
To quote a popular chant among the Republican delegation, "Flip-flop! Flip-flop!"
Sept. 11 was mentioned again and again as a time, now three years in the past, when George Bush was at his best. But the bastard who perpetrated those attacks was mentioned once in prime time, practically by accident, by Gov. George Pataki -- and only in connection with President Clinton's failure to respond to the 1993 WTC bombing.
If Bush plans on running on his actions that day, he's as mistaken as John Kerry is for running on his Vietnam record.
Sept. 11 does not belong to George Bush or Rudy Giuliani or any one person. It belongs to all of us on a very personal level. To some it brought fear and anxiety; others seized on the hope and the spirit of brotherhood that followed. Most of us are somewhere in between.
Wherever you are on that spectrum, those emotions are yours, not any political party's empathy-control valve. Share those feelings as you see fit with loved ones, but remember that day as it happened, not as others want you to remember it.
