Preserving, Protecting and Defending Our Constitution

---

---

It is ironic that we should observe the 225th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Constitution at this time.

I know some folks who think the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are one and the same. That simply isn't so. The Constitution was created in 1787 and ratified in 1788. The Bill of Rights wasn't even created until 1789. America was very much a work in progress at that time — as it still is.

The 225th is a milestone — even if it lacks the pizzazz of a centennial or bicentennial — which is always an occasion for reflection.

This particular milestone, however, is more than an occasion to pause and reflect on the past. It is an occasion to ask ourselves where we are going and if a Constitution that was written in the 18th century is the appropriate vehicle to take us there.

The Constitution is the document that spells out the powers and duties of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government.

And the president's #1 duty is ...

---

"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States ..."

U.S. Constitution
Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1

---

When the president takes the oath of office, he swears that he will "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution (which does not mention things like education, health care, marriage law, etc., being presidential responsibilities).

In other words, national security and defense are the president's top priorities. Some would say they are the president's only responsibilities. I don't feel that way. The president clearly has important domestic responsibilities as well, but he is the face of American foreign policy

However, it is Congress, not the president, that is authorized to declare war.

That condition has eroded considerably since about the mid–20th century.

And it leads me to wonder sometimes if the Constitution needs to be overhauled. I'm afraid, though, that, as polarized as this nation is, no consensus could be reached.

To listen to the presidential candidates this year — at least until recently — one would think that foreign policy no longer had any relevance to American life.

But the events last week in the Middle East prove that is not the case.

So it is a good thing that this Constitution Day brings a fresh reminder that, while a sound economic policy is critical to the well being of the United States, a president has a sacred commitment to the nation's security and defense.

Until last week, the most I had heard from either side regarding national security and defense was Joe Biden's proposal for a bumper sticker: "bin Laden is dead and GM is alive."

That kind of attitude demeans the importance of this portion of the presidential job description. To be sure, the economy and jobs are the most important issues facing this country, in the minds of most Americans, but that does not mean national security and defense have stopped being important.

What has happened — and continues to happen — in the Middle East underscores the fact that no president can control what people in other countries do. Jimmy Carter could not control the radical Muslims in Iran, and Barack Obama cannot control the radicals in Egypt or Libya or Syria.

The best any president can do is insist that U.S. troops be prepared. It is an ongoing responsibility. It cannot be checked off one's presidential to–do list simply by eliminating Public Enemy #1 from the global terrorism roster.

It's not so unusual for Democrats to ignore national defense issues, but it is rather unusual for Republicans to do so. Yet, that is what they did in their convention.

Voters can be forgiven for wondering if either candidate is prepared to stand up for them against a hostile world.

All along, the Obama administration has pretended — to its peril as well as the peril of the rest of us — that the situation in the Middle East was not what the rest of the world could see it really was.

Which goes a long way toward explaining the administration's tepid response to the wave of overt anti–Americanism that is sweeping through the region like a roaring fire.

The administration is perplexed. It sincerely believed that being apologetic and accommodating to the Muslim world would herald a new relationship between America and the countries of that region.

But that has not happened. And now the administration has been forced to acknowledge that privately — it cannot do so publicly because this is an election year.

So the cover story of an objectionable video was invented.

Actually, that's a reasonably plausible straw man, and it seems to be fooling quite a few people. We've already seen how little tolerance countries in that part of the world have for concepts like dissent and free speech, but some simply will not see it.

It seems to me that one would have to be a dunce not to realize the significance of the date on which these protests began. It was the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

Why, you may ask, didn't the terrorists try something on the 10th anniversary? Well, I would say it was not because they didn't hate us. They have hated us for a long time. I think the spotlight was too bright. Security was beefed up everywhere for that anniversary.

But, apparently, no one was really paying attention on the 11th anniversary. The rituals of every 9/11 since 2001 were observed, but I heard no talk of how U.S. forces were on highest alert for the anniversary.

Perhaps the extremists gambled that, since nothing happened in 2011, our guard would be down in 2012. We Americans are notorious for our short attention spans.

Surely, if nothing else, we have seen that these Muslim extremists are extraordinarily patient. After all, they waited nearly 10 years after their first attack on the World Trade Center to launch their second. Why wouldn't they be willing to wait out the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — with the intention of striking on the 11th?

I can't understand why any U.S. forces in the Middle East or any other place in the world where there is a significant Muslim population would not be on their toes on every September 11.

But this time, apparently, they were not. If they had been, four Americans would be alive today.

Of Myths, Heroism and Flight 93

---

---

I realize that this is a weekend of somber reflection, of remembering the thousands of lives that were lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11.

And I realize that it is true, as President Clinton said during his remarks at the dedication of the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania, that there has always been a special place in the American heart and memory for heroes who sacrificed themselves for others.

But one of the things my mother taught me was that there is true value in genuinely inspiring words and deeds, and I don't think what happened with Flight 93 was exactly what we have been told.

I agree that the story of that flight is very moving. It is tragic, as are the accounts of the other three hijacked flights, but it differs from the other three primarily in one way — the passengers on Flight 93 had the benefit of the knowledge that everyone on the ground had, that other flights had been turned into missiles that had struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Those other three plane crashes happened so rapidly that relatively few passengers on those flights probably knew what was happening. It was that element of simultaneous surprise that the terrorists apparently were counting on — to strike before anyone realized what was happening.

But there was a delay in the departure of Flight 93, and it disrupted their timing. It wasn't terribly long as these things go (I've been through worse even though I have never been a frequent flier), but it was long enough that, after the flight finally was airborne, the pilot and co–pilot nearly got a general warning from the ground about hijackings, and it was long enough for the passengers to learn what had happened in New York and Washington.

That gave them some time to consider their situation — and their response.

Consequently, many people have accepted the myth that has emerged that the passengers revolted as some sort of selfless sense of patriotism and sacrifice swelled within them.

I don't doubt that they were patriotic, but neither am I convinced that their motives were as altruistic as we have been told for the last 10 years, either.

If they put two and two together — as most of them apparently did — they must have realized that their plane was not going to land safely. They must have realized they were part of a suicide mission. They must have known that it was almost certain that they would die — unless some sort of miracle happened and they were able to take control of the plane and one of the passengers could, either alone or with assistance from the ground, manage to land it.

I'm reminded of a scene from the movie "Lenny" about comedian Lenny Bruce. In the movie, Dustin Hoffman re–created segments from Bruce's shows, including one about the famous Zapruder film, the graphic account of the JFK assassination.

---

---

After the fatal shot, Jackie Kennedy could be seen climbing from her seat onto the trunk of the car and a Secret Service agent coming forward to help her back into her seat. A sequence of photos from the film was published nationally (in TIME, I think) with a caption that said something about how the first lady gave no thought to her personal safety and tried to shield the president from further gunshots.

Bruce/Hoffman said it was a "dirty lie."

"I think that, when she saw the president get it and the governor get it, she decided to get the hell out of there," he said. I agree. I think it was a split–second decision, reaction without reflection. Human instinct.

If she had had more time to think about it, she might have said yes, she would try to protect her husband if she saw he had been hurt.

But others assigned more meaning to it than that.

That's the feeling I get when I hear people speak of the passengers' revolt on Flight 93. They speak of them as if they sat in the back of that hijacked plane and had an in–depth discussion of American history and the principles of freedom and democracy — and then voted to stand up to terrorism.

I'm not saying that the passengers of Flight 93 reacted without any reflection. And the fact that they forced that plane to go down in a Pennsylvania field instead of Washington probably did save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.

But I don't think that possibility crossed their minds. I think they were thinking only of their own survival. And that isn't a bad thing. It's a normal human instinct — self–preservation.

I've read the transcripts and heard the recordings that have been released to the public. I recall one of the passengers telling the others, "In the cockpit ... if we don't, we'll die!"

I have heard nothing about passengers shouting "Give me liberty or give me death!" or any other patriotic slogans from American history.

Their fates were sealed when that plane left the ground, but they mentally resisted that knowledge. They weren't thinking beyond the moment and doing whatever they could to live to the next moment ... and the next and the next.

There was, I should add, a certain poignance in Vice President Joe Biden's words about rising to the occasion and overcoming adversity. As a young senator–elect, Biden's life was forever altered by the loss of his first wife and their small daughter in a car accident, and for a time he considered leaving politics, but he did not.

Nor did he withdraw from life. He raised his sons the best he could and re–married a few years later. And his nearly four decades of public service stand as testimony to his survival.

Perhaps that will be the future inspiration of September 11 — the way the friends and relatives of the victims rose from the ashes and survived and persevered.

Things were over fairly quickly for the passengers of the planes. Sometimes just surviving is the hardest part.

The Legacy of 9-11

---

---

I know this has been said before — in many, many ways — but it really is hard to comprehend that it has been 10 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

I learned long ago that it isn't necessary to mention the year. All you need to say is "September 11" — or, in the shorthand form of which modern Americans are so fond, "9–11" — and the listener knows precisely what you're talking about.

My memories of that day are bound to be considerably different than the ones most people have, though. At the time, I was working in an office that had no television, and we had to get whatever information we could from the radios at our desks, phone calls from friends and relatives who did have access to television coverage and the internet.

The thing I remember most about that morning is how pleasant the weather was. It was unusually mild for Dallas, Texas, that early in September — the kind of weather, really, that one expects around mid–October at the earliest. Temperatures dropped to the mid–60s the night before, and I remember thinking briefly about wearing a jacket to work that morning.

(It's been a little spooky around here lately. We've endured one of the hottest summers ever, but, a few days ago, a cool front came through and our lows have been in the 60s while our highs have been in the 80s — just in time for the 10th anniversary.)

I remember thinking to myself that it really felt like football season — and that pleased me. You see, when I talk about football weather, I mean the kind of weather I remember from my childhood and college days in Arkansas — cool, crisp, a few clouds in the sky, maybe a slight breeze.

In fact, football season had begun, and that truly is a sacred time in Texas. Not every Texan believes in God, but most do believe in football. I do, anyway, and the knowledge that football season had begun put a spring in my step as I left my apartment that morning.

I was driving to work when I heard reports on the radio of the first airplane crash into the World Trade Center. The radio guys in Dallas were treating it like it was an accident, an isolated event, and I assumed it was. Apparently, they had a television in the radio studio, and they described the sight of one of the tall towers billowing smoke into a clear blue sky.

I have tried — many times — to remember if there were any clouds in the sky over north Texas that morning, and I just can't remember. There may have been some, and I just didn't notice.

I do remember that the sun was shining so, if there were any clouds, there couldn't have been many.

Airports shouldn't be so close to tall buildings, one of the guys on the radio said, as if he knew anything about New York geography. Most listeners probably assumed that he did — but, in fact, JFK Airport is about 12 miles southeast of Lower Manhattan, where the World Trade Center stood.

That alone should have been a tipoff that something was seriously amiss.

But I was driving in rush hour traffic and gave little more thought to the morning radio banter than I usually did, and I recall thinking that having airports a good distance from commercial districts was just common sense.

Terrorism wasn't on my mind yet — and, for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me that a plane crashing into the World Trade Center would be the lead story on the evening news. I made a mental note to mention it to my co–workers — and hoped it wouldn't slip my mind.

Well, it didn't slip my mind. Turned out, it was the only story on the news for several evenings.

I parked my car a few minutes before 8 a.m. Dallas time and entered my building.

In my office, we worked in two–person teams, and I remember walking to my workstation and starting to tell my partner, "I just heard the wildest thing on the radio ..." but she put one finger to her lips to silence me and turned up the volume on the radio on her desk. They were talking about a second plane that had crashed into the WTC.

My office processed auto loans for dealerships around the country, and our work flow depended on the morning and afternoon shipments of paperwork from UPS and FedEx. When air travel was grounded that day, work came to a screeching halt — and remained slow for weeks.

For the rest of that day, we heard about all the things that most people were seeing — the destruction at the Pentagon, the people who jumped to their deaths from the towering infernos that the twin towers had become, the apparently heroic acts of the passengers on Flight 93 that may have prevented the White House or the Capitol from being destroyed.

It was shocking enough to hear about. I remember my departmental manager, Carrie, walking around in a kind of daze. She kept talking about the people who were trapped on those doomed airplanes.

By mid–afternoon, the overall managers of my office decided to close up early (there wasn't any work to do, anyway), and, when I got home, I finally got to see what everyone else had witnessed live.

I haven't had to live with the trauma that seeing all of that as it happened surely must have caused for many. I have seen footage from that day, of course — I saw a lot of it that very day — so I know what millions saw. The difference was that I knew what was coming.

It was like seeing a shocking movie ending that someone told you about before you saw the movie.

Imagine if, 50 years ago, you were standing in line to see "Psycho," and someone walked by and casually said to his/her companion, "I saw it the other day. What a finish! Anthony Perkins is his own mother, and he kills Janet Leigh while she's taking a shower!"

If you stayed to see the movie, the ending would be tarnished for you — to say the least.

Unfortunately, what happened 10 years ago was no movie, and even though I knew what was going to happen, I felt compelled to watch it — maybe out of respect for all the innocent lives that were lost, perhaps out of a sense of duty as an aggrieved American.

Maybe I felt like one does when a car accident or train wreck is unfolding before one's eyes.

Thousands of people died that day, and, as a result, thousands more have died on Middle Eastern soil, and billions of American dollars have been spent there.

I know people who are convinced that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan contributed heavily to America's current economic problems, and perhaps they are right. I'm certainly no economist, but even those people who studied it in college and practice economics professionally don't know everything there is to know. If they did, it seems to me, there would be more of a consensus on what economic policy should be.

There can be little doubt that America's wars in the last decade have taken much of this country's resources, human and financial. But they weren't the sole contributors.

It would be foolish to blame what happened 10 years ago for the troubles facing America in 2011.

And yet ...

I remember, at the time, how so many of the people around me spoke in awe of the brilliant intellects that conceived such a plot. Much of their logic was rooted in the Middle Ages, most people agreed, but they were smart enough to anticipate any roadblocks they might encounter because of modern policies.

They did their research. They were familiar with routine procedures. They made sure the box cutters that were used as knives met existing standards. No detail was too small.

As the plan was taking shape, of course, the roadblocks they wished to avoid were the ones that could stand in their way to achieving a short–term — albeit dramatic — goal.

And they achieved it, perhaps in more spectacular fashion than any dared hope in those days in the late 1990s. From what I have heard, few, if any, thought the Twin Towers actually could be brought down.

But what if one — or more — not only thought the Twin Towers could be reduced to rubble but had the prescience to anticipate a more long–term consequence: how the financial weight of waging two wars simultaneously, combined with the unchecked greed of the seamy underside of capitalism, could bring America to its knees?

It almost seems like one of those bizarre conspiracy theories in which everything must happen just so. What are the odds?

And yet ...

Many of the upper–level operatives for Al Qaeda are either deceased or in custody now.

But if any who are still alive and at large had the foresight to anticipate how hijacking and crashing four airplanes would reverberate in American life and continue to have a corrosive influence on both American economics and American politics a decade later, I can only guess that this must be a satisfying moment.

If so, they must be the only ones who feel satisfied on this occasion.

All Shook Up

---

---

Earthquakes are different in the eastern United States than in the western United States, a fellow with a geological background was saying yesterday following the earthquake in northern Virginia.

I didn't catch everything he said because I was channel surfing, and I came across him midway through his segment, but I gathered from what I heard that the fault lines along the west coast are more active than the ones on the east coast.

I guess I didn't need anyone to tell me that. Folks speak of the period between earthquakes in California in terms of years — decades at the most.

Earthquakes in the eastern United States happen about once every 500 years. The fault line that was responsible for the 5.8 earthquake that shook the east coast yesterday may not even have a name.

The eastern earthquakes also don't pack the kind of punch that the earthquakes in places like California and Japan do. Something about how the fault lines along the east coast fill with accumulated sand and sea debris, making the seismic activity less intense — but, at the same time, helping to make it possible for the quake to be felt from greater distances.

That is why, this fellow was saying, an earthquake in northern Virginia is not as destructive as the 7s and 8s we've seen along the Pacific, but it could be felt in the Carolinas or Georgia as well as the much closer city of New York. I've also heard that it could be felt as far west as Chicago.

Now, science was never my strong subject in school so I have a little trouble understanding that part of it.

Wish I had caught the first part of what he was saying. Wish I knew more about why some earthquakes are more destructive than others — even when they strike areas that expect them and go to great lengths to be prepared for them.

A friend of mine moved to New York a few years ago. Yesterday, he posted on Facebook that he was sitting on his bed when the earthquake struck, and his bed shook.

I had some friends who lived through the San Francisco earthquake in 1989. They told me that their friends out there, who had joked for years about "the Big One," called that earthquake the "Pretty Big One." It only measured 6.9, and it only lasted 15 seconds, but it resulted in 63 deaths and more than 3,700 injuries.

There was also quite a bit of property damage.

Apparently, there was some damage yesterday as well, but it will take awhile to determine the extent. Most of it appears to have been done to older buildings that are ill prepared for an earthquake of just about any magnitude.

And I have heard no reports of deaths or injuries.

In fact, what happened along the east coast yesterday seems to be similar to the kind of thing that has been happening in recent years in my home county in central Arkansas. It is not far from the New Madrid Fault in the central United States that allegedly caused an earthquake in the 19th century strong enough to ring the bells in Boston.

Anyway, there was a series of earthquakes in my home county in the spring — most of which measured in the 3s, which admittedly isn't strong enough for most people to notice.

A 5.8 earthquake is strong enough to notice but not usually strong enough to cause death or injury — unless it strikes severely underdeveloped places. The government in D.C. may be dysfunctional, but the city itself is not underdeveloped.

Thus, I figured it wouldn't be long before some people began poking fun at the exaggerated response to the earthquake.

No deaths. No injuries. The most serious damage, by far, appears to have been psychological.

In both Washington and New York — and other places along the Eastern Seaboard — nerves are on edge less than three weeks before the 10th anniversary of September 11. And, as Marc Fisher reports in the Washington Post, terrorism was the first thought to cross the minds of lots of folks in D.C. yesterday afternoon.

And why not? An airplane piloted by a Islamic extremist crashed into the Pentagon a decade ago. The last earthquake on the east coast may predate the American Revolution.

Commemorating 9-11

I think we all agree that Sept. 11, 2001, was a traumatic day for Americans.

Whether you were at home or in an office, the news was devastating. Whether you saw them as they happened or later on video tape, the sights of an airplane slamming into the World Trade Center and people jumping to their deaths were horrific. The view of the Pentagon in flames took one's breath away. The smoldering crash scene in a field in rural Pennsylvania inspired speculation of what must have happened on that ill–fated flight — and the additional tragedies that may have been prevented.

It is hard to believe that was eight years ago today.

But it was.

And I'm beginning to experience a feeling I have had before.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my mother was killed in a flash flood in May 1995. She was a first–grade teacher. At the time of her death, I recall a great deal of praise coming from her colleagues and the parents of her students. I remember seeing pictures in the local newspaper of students grieving for her. I remember an overwhelming turnout for her funeral service. Those memories remain vivid for me even today.

But that is all they are now — memories. Time marches on.

It is not clear in my mind when I realized that all of my mother's students had grown up, even the ones she was teaching when she died. Some of those students may still remember her; others may not.

Many of those who still remember her may have children of their own now. And, perhaps, they hope that their children will be fortunate enough to have a teacher like my mother.

That would be a great tribute if some of her former students, no matter when they were in Mom's classroom, could see similarities between their children's teachers and my mother. The ultimate tribute, I suppose, would be if some of Mom's former students were inspired by their memories of her to pursue teaching careers.

It reminds me of how I feel about the September 11 terrorist attacks.

I don't begrudge the survivors their pain and suffering. They're entitled to it, even if Ann Coulter writes disdainfully about the "Jersey girls" and their alleged glee over their husbands' deaths.

It's become an annual ritual, this gathering at Ground Zero to recite the names of the dead and listen to speeches. And, even though the 9/11 Commission concluded its work five years ago, we should never stop seeking ways to improve national security. The loopholes the terrorists exploited in the system were big enough to drive a tank through. The ones that are still open need to be closed.

For writers, there are few topics that are as easy to write about as September 11. From sea to shining sea, they offer the latest spin every year:

• Joseph Curl writes, for the Washington Times, that the nation still mourns after eight years. With a few adjustments, the same story probably could be written in 2010 and 2011 and 2012;


• Faye Fiore observes, in the Los Angeles Times, that each anniversary is a reminder for the survivors;


• N.R. Kleinfield recalls, in the New York Times, that fears that New York would become "fortress city" never came to pass.

But, after eight years, it seems to me that anyone under the age of 14 likely would have no memory of that day. And, for most teenagers, the memories are probably spotty at best.

That may seem unsettling to some. Remembering, writes the New York Daily News, is "our forever unfinished business." The Pittsburgh Post–Gazette remembers the passengers of Flight 93 and looks forward to the completion of a permanent memorial to them in two years — by that time, I suppose, those who were born around the time of the attacks will be in fourth grade.

Eli Saslow writes, for the Washington Post, that the attacks are now "pages in the history books" for students in 2009 — like the Civil War and Pearl Harbor.

What seems relevant — even current (in an odd kind of way) — to older Americans is a lesson in history texts for younger Americans. What is needed, it seems to me, is a way to give a contemporary meaning to those events.

Not long after the attacks, September 11 was designated as "Patriot Day." I guess that insures that the date will be remembered long after those who lived through it have passed away.

But as long as the anniversary is marked as "Patriot Day," isn't that, in a way, allowing what so many people cautioned against at the time of the attacks? By focusing attention on what happened in 2001, isn't it a way of allowing the terrorists to "win?"

Even worse, isn't there a chance that, at some point, "Patriot Day," like so many other holidays, will lose its meaning and become little more than an excuse for retailers to promote sales that enable them to profit from the tragedy?

For a long time now, I have thought that September 11 should be used to pay homage to those people in American life who have a positive influence on young people — teachers, ministers, coaches, etc.

They often seem to be the forgotten patriots, the unsung heroes who seek to pass on the values that are revered in this country.

We can honor them — and those who died eight years ago today — by promoting the ideals that define their lives.

The war against terrorism needs no additional promotion.

Have the Terrorists Won?

It seems to me that truly historic days live on beyond their normal 24–hour lifespans and continue to influence our lives indefinitely, in ways that are seen and unseen, even if the public's attention has moved on to something else.

In fact, it reminds me of a pebble tossed into a pond or a lake. From that one tiny point of impact, the ripples fan out in ever–expanding circles, affecting everything they touch, until they are stopped by the distant shorelines.

Need a bigger, grander example? Think of the 2004 tsunami that began with an undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean and led to the deaths of more than 225,000 people in nearly a dozen countries.

It was, in fact, months before the scope of the tsunami was understood. Indeed, it often seems to take the distance that time can provide before the full impact of an historic event can be comprehended.

I was thinking about this the other night while I watched a four–hour program on 9/11. That's an event that has been particularly fascinating for me because, at the time it happened, the office in which I worked had no TV set. Unlike most Americans, I didn't see the events as they unfolded.

I've only seen video footage of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers and the bodies plummeting to earth from great heights. As appalling as those images are, it's one thing to have seen them as they happened, raw and uncensored, playing out in real time, and it's quite another to see film footage of something that has already occurred.

It's kind of like watching the Zapruder film, knowing that President Kennedy's head is about to be engulfed in a bloody halo and being powerless to do anything about it. You may want to yell at the screen, "Don't make that turn!" but you know that Kennedy's limousine will drive down Elm Street past the Texas Schoolbook Depository into history — and there isn't a thing you can do about it.

It's the same with the hijacked planes on September 11, I suppose. You can see the surveillance film of some of the hijackers being briefly detained at the security checkpoints. You can see footage of at least one of the hijackers with what appears to be a box cutter in his hip pocket, and you may feel tempted to yell at the screen, "Don't let him board the plane!" but you know he will, anyway.

And you know that the four planes will be hijacked and nearly 3,000 people will be killed on a crystal clear, early autumn morning.

Sept. 11, 2001, will always be a significant day in American history. But, once the shock from the attacks wore off and the stock market reopened and planes were allowed to fly again, life began to return to normal.

Even so, I think it can be argued that, as meticulous and methodical as the terrorists' planning was, those hijackings had consequences that the terrorists did not anticipate, consequences that continue to influence American life.

In the months after the attacks, for example, Osama bin Laden reportedly told some of his supporters that he didn't foresee the collapse of the Twin Towers. Is that credible? Bin Laden's academic credentials are unclear, but some have said he earned a degree in civil engineering. If that is so, he must have had some idea of what a fire fed by thousands of gallons of jet fuel could do to a skyscraper.

Whether bin Laden believed the towers would fall, his objective seems more certain. He was driven by a desire to bring jihad to American soil. Thus far, that has not happened. We've been told that additional terrorist attacks were thwarted by policies that were followed during the Bush administration, but we've seen no evidence to support that claim. There are those who believe al–Qaeda has been biding its time before striking again, similar to the eight–year gap that passed between the attacks on the World Trade Center.

But, while bin Laden apparently sought to engage the United States in a bloody conflict, he may not have anticipated the direction it would take.

He may not have realized how obsessed the neocons in the Bush administration were with Saddam Hussein, even a decade after the end of the Gulf War, or that they would use the terrorist attacks to justify an invasion of Iraq that continues to claim American lives and money at a time when both could be used more effectively.

But, from bin Laden's perspective, the terrorist attacks may have succeeded in achieving his goal, albeit in unexpected ways. His words may be contradictory, but I think we can agree that his goal seems to be toppling the United States. Al–Qaeda and the Islamic extremists may have a Dark Ages mentality and their objective may be predicated on the use of force, but in the 21st century, the best strategy for destroying a foe is to undermine that foe's economy.

I'm not suggesting that economists sympathetic to Islamic extremism infiltrated the American economy and proceeded to sabotage it. The greed at the top of America's economic food chain owes no allegiance to any faith — only money.

So what is the relationship between the Iraq war, now more than 6 years old, and the recession?

Clearly, many factors have been involved in the recession. But it can be plausibly argued that the combined cost of sustaining the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 — more than $860 billion so far — has made things much worse than they might have been.

And that begs the question — Have the terrorists won?

School Daze

---

George W. Bush is told about the second plane
striking the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

---

Those who are old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001, undoubtedly recall the image of George W. Bush sitting in a Florida classroom while a group of first graders read "The Pet Goat."

I'm sure Bush will remember that day as long as he lives.

But it didn't seem to occur to him when he and his wife made a surprise visit to John J. Pershing Elementary School here in Dallas.

The Bushes recently moved in to their new home in an affluent section of Dallas and visited the school yesterday. According to WFAA, the local ABC affiliate, the ex-president spent more than an hour at the school and visited every classroom.

That image from 2001 was the first thing I thought of when I saw the picture of George and Laura Bush sitting in a Pershing classroom yesterday.

But it really got weird when I realized that today is the 16th anniversary of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

That first attack, back on Feb. 26, 1993, involved the detonation of a car bomb, which was intended to knock the North Tower into the South Tower, bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people. It failed to accomplish that goal, but half a dozen people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

In 1993, Bill Clinton had been president for a little more than a month. Bush had not yet been elected governor of Texas. Eight years later, Bush was president and the terrorists tried again — and succeeded, perhaps beyond their wildest dreams.

Now, here we are, another eight years have gone by and another new president is in office. It makes me wonder what sort of unpleasant surprise the terrorists may have in store for Barack Obama.

The Ironies of Life

This morning began with the tragic news of an airplane crash in Buffalo, N.Y.

Such news always seems to conjure anew memories of that day in September 2001 when terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and deliberately crashed three of them into buildings.

The flight that crashed in upstate New York appears to have been the victim of the weather, not suicidal terrorists.

But Flight 3407 became linked with the September 11 tragedy in an unexpected way — Beverly Eckert, the widow of one of the casualties of that day, was aboard the flight and apparently perished with the other passengers and the plane's crew.

It is unspeakably ironic that Eckert should die in much the same way her husband did. I don't know whether he was a passenger on one of the planes or if he was working in an office in the World Trade Center. My guess is that he was working in the World Trade Center. His home — where Eckert apparently continued to live in the years since the tragedy — is in Stamford, Ct., which is less than 50 miles from New York City.

Eckert was flying to Buffalo, her late husband's hometown, to participate in weekend celebrations commemorating his 58th birthday.

As I say, I don't know if Eckert's husband was in his office or if he was on board one of the hijacked flights. It doesn't matter, really. All plane crashes are tragedies. They can happen at any time — on a cold winter day or on a cloudless early autumn day like the one in 2001. They can be the result of deliberate actions or completely accidental.

The point is that people are killed. Their families and friends are left to cope with the pain of their loss.

Today is a sad day for Eckert's family members. For the second time since the dawn of the new millennium, they are facing the death of a loved one that was the result of an airplane crash.

It is ironic, and somewhere someone is bound to make the cryptic observation that today is Friday the 13th.

Eckert and the rest of the people aboard Flight 3407 (as well as one man on the ground) are just as dead as they would be if a hijacker had been at the controls. Or if they had been confronted in a dark street by a homicidal mugger who only wanted whatever money they happened to have.

But there will always be a sense of irony attached to the manner of her death.

And perhaps this is the best time to have a faith you can lean on to help you make some sense of it all.

"We know she was on that plane," Eckert's sister said, "and now she's with him."

Remembering 9/11

---

---

I guess most, if not all, calendars do this now.

But I recently noticed, on the calendar that hangs on the wall in my kitchen, that today is designated as "Patriot Day."

I didn't need that to remind me that September 11 is an important anniversary in America. And it is being observed in many ways in many places.

For one thing, I have no doubt that, on tonight's evening news programs, we will see footage of the two major party presidential nominees appearing together today at "Ground Zero," where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood.

The spirit of bipartisanship could be more effective if, as Elizabeth Moore writes in Newsday, the joint appearance by John McCain and Barack Obama did not come "at the crescendo of a nasty week of partisan mudslinging."

Unfortunately, if we were going to wait for a lull in the mudslinging, we probably would have to put off the commemoration until well after the election.

The New York Times offers a dozen security-related questions it feels the presidential candidates must answer — preferably while they're in New York to mark the anniversary.

The newspaper acknowledges that "both (candidates) are for change, that they are patriotic and that they are cautious. But we hope they will not be too cautious to give us clear answers, even when these might alienate some voters."

McCain and Obama are "extraordinarily capable and their campaigns ... reflect that fact," says the Times. "And yet with respect to national security, neither campaign has articulated the fundamental points of view that will allow people to make an informed choice in November."

Editorial pages haven't overlooked the anniversary. Here's but a sampling:

• New York Post: "Given that America has suffered not a single additional attack on its soil since 9/11, Americans may believe terrorism is no longer an issue. They couldn't be more wrong."


• The New York Times laments the fact that, seven years after the attacks, there is no "enduring memorial at ground zero."
  
  The Times states, "It is time to give the authority hard deadlines, especially for the memorial, as Mayor Bloomberg did this week. On Sept. 11, 2011, the memorial should be ready for the public to remember the 10th anniversary of the attacks."


• The Washington Post observes that the Pentagon Memorial's dedication today marks the first of the major memorials to 9/11.
  
  "Finding the most appropriate way to honor the dead is never easy," writes the Post. "Paying homage to those who lost their lives in a moment of searing national pain can be almost impossible. Just look at the bickering and delays that have bedeviled the Ground Zero site in New York City."


• The Boston Herald remembers how "the vows of doing better and being better" in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy faded.
  
  "On this day we should remember the sense of sorrow and of loss and then just for a while longer couldn’t we be a little kinder, a little more patient and a lot more loving," writes the Herald, "as we were on that day seven years ago and for so many days that followed."

Many documentaries have been produced about September 11 in the last seven years. Sometimes, I have found such programs to be capable of reviving that post-9/11 feeling of which the Herald writes.

Information and inspiration, however, are not always the same thing.

I think the documentary that I found to be the most informative was aired on the National Geographic Channel in 2005. The two-part, four-hour documentary was called "Inside 9/11," and it followed events in chronological order starting in the 1980s.

Subsequent showings of the documentary were updated to include new information about terrorist activities.

I don't know if that program is being aired again in the near future — I haven't seen any listings for it, either today or in the coming days — but The History Channel will present a documentary tonight called "102 Minutes That Changed America."

David Hinckley reports, in the New York Daily News, that "Assembled from more than 100 professional and amateur tapes, '102 Minutes' re-creates the morning in real time, starting with the crash of the first plane.

"There's no narration, no voice-over, no printed on-screen explanations, just an occasional clock to record the passage of time from 8:46 until the collapse of the second tower."

The program airs at 8 p.m. (Central).

Memo to Nominees — How to be a Successful President

It's a question that every president-elect — not to mention the president-elect's millions of constituents — would like to have a handy answer for.

And Jeffrey Goldberg, whose normal gig is with The Atlantic magazine, has written a piece in the New York Times that purportedly has the answer.

What does the next president absolutely have to do to be judged a success?

"The next president must do one thing, and one thing only," writes Goldberg. "He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America."

Everything else pales in comparison, Goldberg says.

And, on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it's worth reflecting on his words. "The nuclear destruction of Lower Manhattan, or downtown Washington, would cause the deaths of thousands, or hundreds of thousands; a catastrophic depression; the reversal of globalization; a permanent climate of fear in the West; and the comprehensive repudiation of America’s culture of civil liberties."

It's the kind of argument — playing on not just fear but a specific fear — that many people would like to see dominate the discussion in this campaign.

---

"In the cold war, the Soviet Union had the technical ability to eliminate America many times over, but was restrained by rational self-interest, by innate conservatism, and, perhaps, by an understanding of the horror of world-ending nuclear war. Though Al Qaeda cannot destroy the world, it will destroy what it can, when it can."

Jeffrey Goldberg
Op-Ed contributor, New York Times

---

It is true that there are many perils in the world. There always have been.

Humans have always faced risks, for example, from deadly diseases. It would be great if a president could spearhead a renewed effort in the medical community to eradicate something like AIDS or cancer, but, throughout history, it seems that no sooner have humans conquered one scourge than a new one emerges to take its place and bewilder another generation or two of dedicated researchers.

And humans have always been at the mercy of nature. We're currently in the middle of hurricane season, with its unpredictable death and destruction. Even if the dire reports about global warming are correct, reversing that trend will not rid the world of hurricanes or tornadoes or earthquakes. They're not the products of global warming — they've been with us since time began.

It seems to me that John McCain would like for the public to focus attention on the war on terrorism. It is the centerpiece of his campaign.

In the tradition of modern American politics, the emphasis on one issue implies that other problems are only temporary and will correct themselves if left alone.

But terrorism is only one of many issues with which the next president must contend. A president can't specialize in one area and hope everything works out all right in the other areas. If a candidate for president knows he is weak in some area — like foreign affairs or economics — that candidate should share with the voters what he plans to do if elected.

In a little more than four months, George W. Bush will leave the White House, and a new commander in chief will move in.

Will the next president rely on a panel of expert advisers to compensate for his lack of expertise in certain areas? Will he follow President Lincoln's example and put his ego on a shelf, seeking the counsel of a "team of rivals" (to use the phrase penned by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin) for the good of the country?

It has been suggested that the clash between Russia and Georgia led Barack Obama to acknowledge, at least to himself, his personal limitations and narrow the focus of his running mate search, resulting in the selection of a Senate colleague with clear credentials in foreign affairs.

If that's true, it shows that Obama is aware of the need for an administration to be prepared for anything that may happen on the global stage.

But it doesn't tell us if he is prepared to stand up to the terrorists.

Goldberg frets about what he sees as Obama's naïvete in foreign affairs. He says it was "disconcerting" to hear Obama tell ABC's "Nightline" a few months ago that the efforts following the first attack on the World Trade Center were commendable.

"We were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial," he quotes Obama as saying. “They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.”

Goldberg concedes the point, "yet there is no better example of why law enforcement is inadequate to the demands of effective counterterrorism today than the prosecution of the 1993 bombers," he writes.

"The capture and conviction of the terrorists were perfectly executed; the F.B.I. reached all the way to Pakistan to catch the plot’s mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, who is today thoroughly incapacitated at the federal 'supermax' prison in Colorado."

Law enforcement appears to have followed all the rules. But other terrorists stepped forward — and, as a result, "the World Trade Center is gone. Eight years after the first attempt, Ramzi Yousef’s uncle ... organized a more successful attack. The successful prosecution of the original bombers lulled the country into a counterfeit calm."

Preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons is important.

But McCain has acknowledged a lack of knowledge about economic issues that is also risky today.

In America, gas prices are easing, but a gallon of gas is still selling for what would have been an astronomically high price less than a year ago.

Have wages kept up?

That's assuming, of course, that you still have your job — according to figures released last week, the unemployment rate is at its highest level in five years. August job losses were 20% higher than expected. What will the September figures reveal? Will unemployment be higher in October than it is today?

What happens in the American economy has a ripple effect in the economies of the other nations of the world. In the Financial Times of London, Mark Penn alludes to Hillary Clinton's famous commercial from her primary campaign against Obama: "It’s 3 a.m. and your children are asleep, and the markets are collapsing in Shanghai, and in the White House a phone is ringing," Penn writes.

"Who do you want to answer it? With the collapse of the credit markets, the gyrations in energy prices and the surge in unemployment, this is becoming the central test facing America’s presidential contenders."

Yes, preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons is important.

But so is health care. And, in an age of rapidly escalating prices, affordable health care is essential — if only to help people pay for the prescription drugs that sustain their lives. Of course, there are so many other reasons why affordable health care is important.

And so is employment. The economic figures may indicate growth (even if it's slower) — but what does it say about an economy when its unemployment rate goes up at the very moment when the workforce is shrinking because young people are leaving their summer employment and returning to the classrooms?

As I say, with a presidential election heating up and the September 11 anniversary a couple of days away, it's fitting that we should reflect on keeping America safe from terrorists.

But that is only one of the threats to our standard of living.

Americans need to discuss many issues before casting their votes in November.

Goldberg does readers a disservice by suggesting that only one issue really matters in 2008.

There will be many complex problems waiting for the next president.

The Ides of September

---

---

In the chronology leading up to the hijackings and terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, I don't think the date of August 31 has any significance.

By this time seven years ago, all the hijackers had purchased their airplane tickets.

It is my understanding that the hijackers sent back unused funds to al-Qaeda paymasters shortly before the date of the attacks.

At this point in 2001, some of the hijackers may have started moving into position, even though the hijackings were still nearly two weeks away.

So what is there to be said today as we approach the seventh anniversary of the hijackings of the airplanes that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center, penetrated the Pentagon and disintegrated in a field in Pennsylvania?

Those hijackings put the United States on the path it has followed ever since — a path of war (one was necessary, one was needless). The sand of the Middle East has been turned into quicksand that has greedily gobbled up American lives and treasure.

It is clear, I think, that Osama bin Laden won’t remain in the shadows. And the United States has mostly left him alone for the last seven years while it’s been busy settling old scores with a weakened Saddam Hussein — like the old general who insists on fighting the new war by focusing on correcting the mistakes and tactical errors from the last war.

(Which reminds me of a wonderful Dana Carvey ”Saturday Night Live” skit in which he portrayed President George H.W. Bush speaking about the Persian Gulf War from the Oval Office. ”This is not Vietnam,” Bush/Carvey says solemnly. ”For we have learned the lesson of Vietnam. And that lesson is — ‘Stay out of Vietnam!’”)

Saddam’s dead now, and the United States occupies Iraq, but we’re still having to spend billions of dollars to fight the insurgents.

If the terrorists were to pull off another attack on American soil today, frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me — although I suspect it would surprise a lot of people.

What would surprise me would be the form of the attack — because I have almost no idea what it will be.

The only idea I have on the subject is that it won’t involve hijacking airplanes.

That’s something the terrorists have already done.

And, because it is something they’ve already done, airline security has been under pretty intense public scrutiny for the last seven years.

Some screeners at airports have taken their lumps, at times, for permitting contraband to be carried on board by passengers who turned out to be investigators or reporters.

But the industry has made efforts to improve cockpit security as well as passenger security. It isn't perfect — it remains a work in progress — but it's better than it was.

So, while I have no doubt that the terrorists have not abandoned their plans to attack the United States, I don’t think airlines will be used as the weapons next time.

The next attack will exploit a different weakness.

When I was fresh out of college, I worked for a year and a half as a police reporter. And, as the police told me then (and I’m sure they would tell you today — since the fundamentals of criminal activity do not seem to change), a criminal needs to believe that a target isn’t being watched.

Criminals like to break into a car that’s parked in a dark corner of a parking lot or parking garage.

They prefer to pick a safe in a shadowy business office.

They want to climb in through a window of a home in which no lights are shining.

In the last seven years, the spotlight on air travel has been far too bright.

So, if you want to identify probable targets, look for something with little or no security — and the potential to undermine the U.S. economy.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the economy suffered for months before starting to turn around — but the recovery period was relatively short because the economy had been in pretty good shape prior to the attacks.

Given the state of the economy of 2008, a well-chosen target in another terrorist attack could cripple the economy for who knows how long.

I also believe the next ”teams” of terrorists — if the next plot involves teams — will not look like Arabs, the way the hijackers of 9/11 did.

The new generation of terrorist ”teams” will have a more Western look. They may be white or black — or Hispanic or Asian. I believe they will be chosen because they blend in.

For that reason, they might be Hispanic if the attack originates in a state that has a high percentage of Hispanic residents — like California or Texas. They might be black if the attack originates in the Deep South — someplace like Atlanta, perhaps — or a Northern city that drew large numbers of black migrants from the South — like Chicago or Detroit.

If there are multiple, simultaneous attacks, like there were in 2001, I believe the team members will have characteristics that won't raise any eyebrows in their locations.

They may be given clothing that will help them blend in. If the attack originates near a military installation, they may be given military uniforms. If it originates near a college campus, they may be given attire that is typical of today's college students.

They might even be women.

We’ve already seen cases of pregnant women serving as suicide bombers in the Middle East. It is indeed ironic that the desire to destroy others can be made to overrule the innate instinct in these young women to protect their children.

The point of how frustrating it can be to prevent that kind of enemy from attacking was driven home by the character of Admiral Fitzwallace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the ”West Wing” TV series:

”The laws of nature don't even apply here,” he complained bitterly near the end of the third season.

And how does one prepare for an attack when it is unknown (a) what form the attack will take, (b) where the attack will take place, (c) who the target(s) and attacker(s) will be, and (d) when the attack will commence?

As Joe Pesci's character said in the movie "JFK" ...

"It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma."

Obama's Challenge

---

"We stand at the edge of a New Frontier — the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus."

Sen. John F. Kennedy,
Democratic presidential candidate,
July 14, 1960 acceptance speech

---

In a few hours, Barack Obama will give his nomination acceptance speech.

And when he does, we will live in a new America, one that I wonder if even John F. Kennedy could have imagined on that July night in 1960 — an America in which it is no longer a "dream" (to coopt a word that Dr. Martin Luther King used frequently in his famous speech in Washington 45 years ago today) for a black American to be nominated for president.

(I suspect, however, that, if someone had asked Kennedy which party would be the first to nominate a black for president, he wouldn't have hesitated in saying that the Democrats would be the first to achieve that milestone.)

That's about as much of the American dream as can be pledged to anyone. All Americans are promised the right to participate — not necessarily to succeed.

Success (in any endeavor) depends on things like effort and desire — as well as some things that are beyond an individual's control.

And, while success can be defined as winning the nomination (especially when no one from your demographic group has won the nomination before), a presidential nominee should not be satisfied with that achievement alone.

(It is possible to win a nomination, lose the election, and later be renominated and go on to victory the second time — Richard Nixon proved that when he was elected in 1968 after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960.

(For that matter, Andrew Jackson was renominated in 1828, four years after losing the first time, and was elected. Grover Cleveland was nominated in three consecutive elections, winning in 1884, losing in 1888, and winning again in 1892 — he's still the only president elected to two non-consecutive terms in office, although he won the popular vote all three times).

(But much more common in the American political experience have been people like Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale — candidates who were nominated for president once, lost and were not nominated again. Apparently, John Kerry and Al Gore are destined for that fate as well.)

Tonight's final session of the 2008 Democratic National Convention will be held at Invesco Field, where the Denver Broncos play their football games. The first three sessions of the convention were held indoors at the Pepsi Center, which is home to basketball's Denver Nuggets.

Clearly, the Invesco Field audience will be appreciably larger than the one that greeted Obama's wife on Monday night or Bill and Hillary Clinton for their speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

The TV audience might well be larger than the others, too, although that (obviously) won't be affected by the venue. The schedule of speakers clearly has something to do with it. According to the Weekly Standard, the Nielsen ratings for the convention revealed that Tuesday night's viewership went up 16% over the previous night.

Based on that, Hillary Clinton was a bigger draw than Michelle Obama.

"Tonight’s Obama-Palooza at Invesco Field should smash all the old records," says the Weekly Standard, "if for no other reason just to see if the Democratic nominee wears a toga to match the Greek columns."

In what is sure to draw comparisons from political observers, Obama's acceptance speech will be the first delivered outdoors by a Democrat since John Kennedy's 1960 acceptance speech — the "New Frontier" speech, as it has come to be known, that Kennedy gave at Los Angeles' Memorial Coliseum.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who was being urged to run for president again nearly a year ago, also is scheduled to deliver a speech tonight.

Obama faces some challenges tonight, as Kennedy did half a century ago.

Kennedy, as a Catholic, had to convince a largely Protestant electorate that he could be trusted. Obama, as the first black presidential nominee, has to do the same with a predominantly white electorate.

Kennedy's challenge differed a bit. In the world of 1960, in which there was a very limited number of political primaries as well as limited private ownership of television sets, it was necessary to use an event like a national convention to introduce himself to the public.

Obama won his nomination in an information-obsessed world — one in which an entire generation of voters has grown up with cell phones, personal computers and cable and satellite TV. It is not as vital to Obama's quest to make introducing himself one of the goals of tonight's speech.

Most viewers will already be familiar with much of Obama's personal story. Many of them will know far less about his positions on the issues.

Of course, like every nominee of the party that is out of power, Obama must present a list of problems that have not been adequately addressed by the incumbent administration.

It won't be enough to say that electing John McCain would mean "four more years of the same." That may be true, but voters need to hear specifics about the problems and what Obama wants to do to correct them.

And that's the "red meat" the delegates want, too.

They need details.

By the way ...

While we're on the subject of details, the Republicans have eagerly used the events of September 11, 2001, for their own political purposes in the last seven years — including their selection of both the location (New York) and timing (early September) of their 2004 national convention.

But the Democrats may have the edge this time when it comes to using that event.

The city of Denver didn't figure prominently in the tragic events of September 11. But the stadium in which Obama will speak tonight was the site of an NFL game for the very first time on Monday night, Sept. 10, 2001 — only a few hours before the hijackings began.

And the team that visited Denver that night was none other than the New York Giants.

(I've often wondered how many conversations about the Giants' 31-20 loss in that game were interrupted the next morning on New York's trains, subways and buses by reports — or actual sightings — of the carnage at the World Trade Center.)

The Republican convention, which is going to be held in St. Paul, Minn., won't lack its own ties to September 11.

Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted of being part of the 9-11 conspiracy, had some flight training in Eagan, Minnesota, which is only a few miles from St. Paul.

But, although Moussaoui reportedly was considered by Osama bin Laden for the role of the so-called "20th hijacker," investigations have been able to conclusively determine only that he was a member of al-Qaeda.

While he was convicted on conspiracy charges that related to the 9-11 attacks, apparently, he was rejected as a member of the hijacking teams because he had not yet learned to fly adequately. (As a matter of fact, he already was in custody in Minnesota on the day of the hijackings.)

He is serving his sentence in a federal maximum security prison in Florence, Colo., which is about 100 miles south of Denver.