Trending
Out of the clearest blue sky, four doomed planes came roaring into New York, Pennsylvania and across the river to the brick fortress with five sides.
The airships smashed so many lives. Nineteen guys did it. Their plot started to shipwreck the American 21st century. Just look around. We let that happen.
America was bleeding, grieving. The world wept with us.
But the falling towers and the burning Pentagon gave our new leaders license to do what they wanted to do: Wage wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and the "war on terror." President George W. Bush never let losing the popular vote to former Vice President Al Gore sober him up for a second. The new president vowed to kick some a--. Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives later it's time for some remorse and reflection. We've done damage in these futile wars. Afghanistan and Iraq were left in shambles.
But we also lost American self-reliance and common sense. We scared too easily after Sept. 11, unlike after the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to the best in us, Bush to the worst. The world's last best hope should not go to war over 19 guys the FBI could have caught on our own soil. Compare that with making peace in Bosnia.
Bush ignored warnings. He sneered and even swore at the briefer on Aug. 6, 2001. Bush paid no price, because later, President Donald Trump was worse. Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which made New Orleans gone with the wind and water, was Bush's endgame. People saw how inept he was when times got tough. The Bush-Cheney years darkened and coarsened our character at home and abroad. Suddenly, everyone was a suspicious stranger to everyone else.
We let liberties go. The "homeland security" apparatus grew vaster than we citizens knew. The FBI spent its time hounding Muslim communities living here in peace. We threw everything we had at 19 guys and took 10 years to take their mastermind out: Osama bin Laden.
Former President Barack Obama accomplished that mission but escalated "his" war in Afghanistan. The generals helpfully named it a surge. Obama pursued a drone war, too, inherited from Bush. He conducted secret strikes against Yemen. Congress never approved and lost a lot of ground in checking the presidency. Obama charmed the public with a command of the English language after Bush's mangled syntax.
Yet his appointments were elitist and Harvard-centric. He was a soloist, not playing politics as a team sport. He didn't fight for his Supreme Court nominee.
This liberal fell out of love.
One knell: Obama appointed James Comey FBI director. Comey dealt two near-death blows to Hillary Clinton's presidential run. As president, you usually try to protect your legacy and chosen successor. Obama kind of let Trump win. He didn't like campaigning for other people.
Openly racist after the first Black president, Trump renewed the Civil War for our times.
The rest is history. The pandemic map is deadlocked, divided into Northern and Southern states, vaccinated and unvaccinated. And that is not an accident.
It's as clear to me as that turquoise blue sky.
Jamie Stiehm is a nationally syndicated author.