dreading the anniversary

The fifth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 are almost upon us and I dread it. I dread hearing de facto President George W. Bush speak and telling us how he has made us safer but we need to torture and lock people up and shred the Constitution to make us safer, in the process perhaps fatally undermining the way of life he says is under attack. I agree with James Fallows' essay in The Atlantic -- we should declare victory over Al Qaeda and move on to other challenges.

The White House is telling us Bush's September 11 speech won't be political. Don't you believe it, these guys have politicized the terrorism issue so thoroughly that they have nothing else to run on. Which is why the Repugnicans are ramping up their opposition research against Democratic candidates for Congress, "opposition reseach" being the polite term for digging up dirt (making it up when necessary) to slander them.

Even apart from the painful knowledge of how the Bushites have desecrated the memories of those killed on that day by using it as a spurious excuse to attack Iraq, diminish civil liberties (Fallows is right -- terrorists can't hurt us nearly as much as our (over)reaction to terrorist attacks can), and steal a second term. Oh, and I believe we've now had more Americans killed in Iraq (which was, remember, not connected in any way to 9/11) than were killed on that terrible September day.