How far we've come

We are today a more confused, convoluted and crazy nation than we have ever been. The headlines of my local newspapers make me sick. The primary reason being that we have learned little – if anything at all – in the two years since the worst moment in the national psyche of our republic. The confusion is rampant. The convolution is politically motivated. The craziness is merely a byproduct of that which the former creates. And here we are with forgetful minds only 24 months after the world came crashing to a standstill.

There are not many times when I feel it is necessary to be punitive in the force of my words with this column – or the radio show that I do each day – but upon reflection of the daily newsprint in this week of 9-11, I can not restrain my thoughts or words with niceties befitting a Sunday-school picnic.

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I am angry. I am sad and I am fearful of what we desire as a nation with a short memory.

The monetary gains that some still look to make off of 9-11 alone would be worth my scorn. Days ago in the Sept. 10 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, the headline reads "JUDGE OK'S SUING AIRLINES OVER SEPT. 11."

Chicago-based United Airlines and Ft. Worth-based American Airlines have endured nothing but bad news ever since the day of the tragedy and Judge Alvin Hellerstein feels it appropriate to take these two companies that by and large serve more Americans through air travel than any other two single airlines, and turn them back into a soccer ball.

Could they have reinforced the doors on the planes? Could they have had tighter screening? We know the answers to these questions. The people who lost families on these airlines have suffered – I lost my friend Barbara Olson on one of their flights. As the nation mourned, the flights stopped, the airlines – and many other areas of industry – tanked and they took the economy with them. But no one imagined the evil that awaited us that morning – no one could have before the horrific deeds of the terrorists on that sunny September day.

Judge Hellerstein didn't stop there. According to the Sun-Times, "... airlines and manufacturers could foresee that crashes causing death and destruction on the ground were a hazard that would arise should hijackers take control of a plane." And using this logic he is allowing people to file suit against Boeing, based in Chicago and Seattle.

But he continued, "As for the Port Authority, it has not shown that it will prove its defense of governmental immunity." So, the Port Authority is now also a target for the trial lawyers of America to earn more marks of legal machismo.

Let us not forget it was the joint actions of the Port Authority police – working in conjunction with the New York Police Department and the New York Fire Department – who saved the lives of nearly 25,000 people who were in the towers after the planes hit.

In addition to the "suit-friendly" Judge Hellerstein ruling, every Democrat on the campaign circuit for president acts and pretends as though they are serious about the future of this country in regard to terrorism, but then quickly uses politically expedient and inflammatory rhetoric to boost their numbers. They do so with a supposed clear conscience. They also do so without lifting a finger or saying a word about one of their democratic brethren, current California Gov. Gray Davis and his rush to give people – who aren't supposed to be in the U.S. – legal documentation that then makes it nearly impossible to distinguish them from normal Americans.

Gray Davis should be tried and convicted for treason, for aiding and abetting terrorists, and punished accordingly. The Democrats are quickly assailing the position of keeping unidentifiable persons out of our country, and those who support this position need to be dealt with according to the law. And the media itself is acting as though "life is normal" in America today, barely 2 years since the day the world stopped.

My scorn today is not for those who simply have a different ideology than I, it is for those who are purposefully setting us up for another Sept. 11. And because my heart has not yet fully healed, and because it may not ever, those who would do nothing but seek to weaken us have my suspicion, not support – and so it should be for anyone who truly loves this country today.

I guess that makes me sound mean and very short-sighted and not very globally minded, in the words of Howard Dean.

But in the words of Kevin McCullough: "Get over it!"