September Tenthers

September Tenthers
by Jennifer King, Managing Editor

September 23, 2003

"The Heretical Housewife"

Managing Editor Jennifer King On the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Lawrence F. Kaplan published an extraordinary article in the Wall Street Journal. Titled, “Are you a September 10th American?”, Kaplan detailed polls which indicate that America is essentially split into two, mostly partisan, groups - those who consider their lives and the world changed by the events of September 11th and those who consider the attacks as “an event whose significance is emotional…and historical“ and not “the opening salvo of a years-long struggle”. According to Kaplan, the group most affected by September 11th are comprised of “evangelical Christians, whites, rural dwellers, southerners and self-described conservatives”. Non-affected September Tenthers are made up of “secular Americans, African-Americans, residents of cities, non-southerners, or self-described liberals.” Predictably, this schism manifests itself along party lines, with Democrats making up the majority of the September Tenthers and Republicans falling into the Eleventher camp.

The evidence is clear - Kaplan has phrased it succinctly. For thousands of us, September 11th was a watershed event, a heart-stopping moment when reality finally punched us smack in the face. The pundits had been right. Terrorism was real, and it was now here. The unbelievable, the unthinkable had happened, just as they had warned us it would. Sobriety set in, after the endless “party-on dude” decade. Islamism - unveiled - revealed a secret world of fanatical crusaders, bent on our destruction. No longer could we pretend they didn’t exist. On September 11th, we immediately realized the necessity of taking the terrorists on, of stopping them before they could strike again. The bursting of the tech bubble, and the attack on the Twin Towers proved irrefutably that the fantasy make-believe world of the nineties was over. Saddened, wiser and grim, we grew up - overnight.

Unbelievably, the September Tenthers never did. After the briefest of respites, the Left dove back into the mud pit. Decency and polite discourse - gone the way of the dinosaurs during the Clinton era - resumed just as if it were still September 10th. Democratic Presidential hopefuls and operatives daily spew a barrage of visceral, hate-laced invective at President Bush, mixing outrageous accusations and lies with convenient revisionism of historical facts.

The mainstream media has waged an endless campaign to try and convince the American people that the war in Iraq is a Vietnam-like “quagmire”, and that American troops are disgruntled and unhappy with their mission. Every incident which causes American casualties is eagerly and breathlessly reported upon, while successes are blithely ignored. The September Tenthers are at war - but not with the terrorists of September 11th. To the Tenthers, September 11th was not a watershed. It provided no epiphany. Their real war is with the American right.

September Tenthers apparently cannot see the forest for the trees, blinded as they are by their unbridled loathing of President Bush and conservatives. The War on Terror - a real war which we must win - takes a back seat to the phony War on Bush.

Many of us view September 11th as our generation’s Pearl Harbor, and Islamic terrorism as our modern day totalitarian fascist enemy. The September Tenthers do not. Their blinders prevent them from recognizing the truth - that Islamofascists hate us all equally and wish to utterly destroy us all. The terrorists will not bother to cull out their September Tenther supporters from the rest.

Imagine if, in 1942, the following column had run - “to label any group in Germany as an enemy is to take sides, or at least appear to, and that is not acceptable. One person’s enemy is another’s freedom fighter and it’s not for journalists to judge.” Or this one - “the poll findings (fingering Japan as having a hand in Pearl Harbor) are significant because they help to explain why the public continues to support operations in the Pacific despite the setbacks and bloodshed there.” Or, imagine a U.S. Congressman saying the following about FDR - “He is the worst President of the five that I have served with. He’s done a terrible job.” Or, a U.S. Senator saying, “We have not been told the truth. The President didn’t do the things necessary to protect our troops…this war is one of the most faulty, ill-advised, badly implemented policies I’ve seen in years.”

In 1942, with American dander up and with our boys getting creamed in the Pacific and elsewhere, these comments would have been met with derision and a swift boot in the pants. When Pearl Harbor happened, Americans instantly rallied together to defeat our common enemies. We jointly realized that our very survival was at stake, and we were determined to prevail. In our century, September 11th was an eerily similar event, and our survival is similarly at risk. Yet, September Tenthers seem not to recognize this, or to care about it.

To September Tenthers, the enemy is not Osama, he is George W. Bush and he is us. ***

Photo of Jennifer King courtesy of staff files