As it Might Have Been

Mr Bush said the cockpit storming ‘ranks among the most courageous acts in American history’ and former president Bill Clinton said the passengers and crew were ‘ordinary people given no time at all to decide’ what to do.

Mr Clinton likened the actions of those aboard Flight 93 to the defenders of the Alamo in Texas or the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae some 2,500 years ago, who knew they were going to die. Leaders in Tears at 9/11 Anniversary

In the America I was born in, you might have expected to see two American presidents embracing. But not in post-modern America, where public displays of psychopathy were not just the norm, but expected from the party faithful -- and by that I mean, of course, Democrats, for whom politics is not about building roads and hospitals, but about greed for power. Greed -- now there's a subject that can cover all sorts of angles. There's a reason why it's a mortal sin, and why it does little good to tout it as a "virtue." Child porn, dope, liberal politics . . . . all have one thing in common. Greed.

Greed can be "soft", like smoking dope; or harsh, like calling Bush 'Hitler.' But it's the same mechanism: replacing principle with some form of self-indulgence. That's the nature of its sin. And it's that sin that's been killing us since the Sixties; killing you Brits since Hitler crossed into the Sudetenland. Call it whatever you wish -- call it idealism, or freedom, or pacifism or "hope" -- but greed is wanting what you want without regard to what needs to happen. That is our situation. No other Bogeys need apply.

People who put self-indulgence ahead of principle get what we get, which is to say, flaccidity, cowardice, and dishonor.

No, friends, greed is no virtue, but a myth of a materialistic age. It is childishness, wanting every day to be Christmas. And, until the bill is paid in full, I'm afraid we're in for more horrors.

[F]rom the ashes of the World Trade Center arose Barack Hussein Obama -- the One who would redeem us, floating above the world like a multicultural Messiah. He bore a miraculous name, redolent of our two worst enemies, which seemed to promise some sort of divine intervention. He offered us the Muslim heritage of his father as a magical shield, deflecting the homicidal rage of seething hordes in scary, far-off places, and preserving our peace with no price to pay. His jutting jaw, tilted upwards a la Mussolini, would be our amulet, as all the world marveled at the Lightworker, the brilliant new god America had made.

The hysteria that accompanied Obama's campaign -- the fainting at his rallies, the Il Duce-like graphics, the Styrofoam Greek columns, the singing of his praises by glassy-eyed students led by enraptured cadres of apparatchik teachers -- bore no resemblance to anything that had ever happened in mainstream American politics. We tried to create a god to defend our freedom, because it was easier than the hard work needed to defend it ourselves. Stella Paul

Not to be missed: PAUL KRUGMAN BEARS HIS SOUL