For those who haven't read it or seen it, the transcript is
here.
A few comments:
Keith Olbermann wrote:At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial ?- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field, Mr. Lincoln said "we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate ?- we can not hallow ?- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We can not dedicate ?- we can not consecrate ?- we can not hallow ?- this ground." So we won't.
That's a nice rhetorical touch, but there's no such thing as the "Gettysburg Memorial." Lincoln went to Gettysburg to help dedicate a cemetery for Union war dead. I would suggest that a cemetery is rather easier to plan, develop, and dedicate than the kind of multi-million dollar farrago of grief and vengeance that most politicians and family members have demanded for the WTC site.
Keith Olbermann wrote:Instead they bicker and buck-pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing ?- instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush
we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir ?- on these 16 empty acres, the terrorists
are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
I guess this means that Olbermann is laying the entire blame for the failure to erect a 9/11 monument to Bush. First of all, I don't think that's fair, and secondly, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Bush certainly isn't the guy who is calling all of the shots at Ground Zero: there are numerous bureaucratic and governmental layers, as well as a rather vocal public and a stubborn developer to consider. And the inevitable result of any kind of process that takes all of those disparate factors into consideration is usually something quite awful, like the World War II monument in Washington, D.C. Actually, I believe the process would have gone much faster if one person had been in charge, even if that person had been George W. Bush. The result, of course, might have been even worse, but at least it would have been finished by now.
As to his overall message, however, Olbermann is right: Bush has used fear for his own partisan purposes, and has taken cynical advantage of the 9/11 attacks to promote his agenda.
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