Keith was visibly upset after the GOP ran their 9/11 “tribute” ad during last week’s convention. Tonight, that outrage manifested itself in yet another scathing Special Comment aimed at John McCain and the rest of the 9/11 exploiting GOPers.
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This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.
Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.
But 9/11 has become…… a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form.
9/11 has become… 9/11, with a trademark logo.
FLASHBACK: Keith’s 2006 Special Comment from Ground Zero.
Full transcript below the fold:
This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.
Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.
But 9/11 has become…… a brand name.
A Republican campaign slogan.
Propaganda of the lowest form.
9/11 has become… 9/11 **with a trademark logo.**
9/11 (**TM**) has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional **crooks** in office without - literally - any visible means of support.
9/11 (**TM**) has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation’s history.
The political party in office at the time of the attacks, at the local, state and national levels, the party which **uniformly** ignored the warnings — and the presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term and no longer wet behind the ears — have not only thus far escaped any **blame** for the malfeasance and criminal neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and that party, have managed to make it seem as if the **other** political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future.
Thus, Senator McCain, were you able to accomplish a further inversion of reality at your party’s nominating convention last week.
There was the former Mayor of the City of New York — the one who took **no counter-terrorism measure** in his seven years in office between the first attack on the World Trade Center, and the second attack.
Nothing, except to insist — despite all advice and warning - that his Emergency Command Center be moved directly **into** the World Trade Center.
Yet there was this man, Sir - Rudolph Giuliani — quite succinctly dismissed as “A Noun, a Verb, and 9/11,” and repudiated even by Republican **voters** — transformed into the keynote speaker, Senator McCain — at **your** convention.
And his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette’s-like repetition of 9/11 (**TM**), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt - hard-earned guilt, in fact - but rather as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor — a facile and slick con artist.
The blind endorsing the bland, to a chorus of 9/11 (**TM**), 9/11 (**TM**), 9/11 (**TM.**)
Your ringing mindless cheer of “We’ve Kept You Safe Since Then”…
While nobody asks “doesn’t **then** count?”
All of this, sadistically disrespecting the dead of New York, and Washington, and Shanksville…
**Endorsed**, Senator McCain…
**Exploited**, Senator McCain…
**Trademarked,** Senator McCain… by **you.**
And yet of course **the** exact moment in which Senator McCain’s Republicans showed the nation exactly how far they have fallen from the Better Angels of Mr. **Lincoln’s** Nature, came the **next** night.
The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when **children** could still be watching, for a 9/11 **Tribute**, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.
What we got was not a tribute to the **dead** of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt.
The Republicans gave us sociological pornography… a virtual **snuff film**.
Years ago, responsible television networks, to the applause of the nation, and the relief of its mental health authorities, voluntarily stopped showing the most graphic of the images of the World Trade Center, except with the strongest of warnings.
And yet, the Republicans, at their convention, having virtually seized control of the cable news operations, showed… the worst of it.
This is **all** anyone with a conscience can show you of what the Republicans showed you.
The actual collapse of the smoking towers.
A fleeting image of what might have been a victim leaping to his death from a thousand feet up.
And something new.
From this angle, ground-level, perfectly framed, images — of the fireball created when the second plane hit the second tower.
It was terrifying.
After all its object **was**… to **terrify.**
Not to commemorate, not to call for unity, not to remember the dead.
But to terrify.
To open again the horrible wounds, to brand the skin of this nation with the message — as hateful as the terrorists’ own — that you must vote Republican or this will happen again and you will die…
And just in case that was **not** enough, to also dishonestly and profanely **conflate** 9/11 with the 1979 **Irahn** Hostage Crisis — to stoke the flames of paranoia about **another** Middle Eastern Nation.
This **was** a 9/11 Tribute.
Not to the dead, nor to the unity.
But a tribute to how valuable 9/11 has been as a political tool for the Republican Party.
9/11… (**TM.**)
Senator McCain, you had promised us a **clean** campaign.
You could be Snow-White the rest of the way, Sir, yet that manipulative videotape from **your** convention should tar you always in the minds of decent Americans.
And still, as this seventh 9/11…(**TM**)… approaches — that, Sir, is not the worst of your contributions to the utter politicizing of a day that should be sacrosanct to all of us.
Hard to believe, but the Senator has done worse with 9/11 and the evil behind it.
We heard it last week in Minnesota… we’ve heard it off and on since January…
But Senator McCain said it most **concisely** in June.
“Look,” he said. “I know the area, I’ve been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden — or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it. I know how to do it.”
Senator McCain seems to be quite serious — that he and he alone — not the CIA, nor the U-S Military, nor the current President — can capture Bin Laden.
Thus we must take him at his word, that this is no mere ludicrous campaign boast.
We must assume Senator McCain truly believes he is capable of doing this, and has **been** capable of doing this, since last January.
“We will capture Osama bin Laden… we will do it. I know how to do it.”
Well then, Senator… you’d better go and **do it**… **hadn’t** you?
Because, Sir, if a man or woman in this nation, Democrat or Republican, had a clear and effective means of capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden…
If that person had been advertising his claim, Senator… for **eight** months…
But if that person not only refused to go to responsible authorities in government and **advise** them of this plan to catch Bin Laden, but further announced he would not even begin to **enact** this secret plan to corral the world’s most hated man… until the end of **next** January…
What would be **your** description of such an individual, Senator?
Charlatan?
**Do-nothing**?
**Opportunist**?
Senator McCain, if you have — if you have **had** — a means of capturing Osama Bin Laden, and you do not immediately **inform** some responsible authority of the full scope of that plan, you are to some degree great or small… **aiding and abetting** Osama Bin Laden.
If you could assist in **capturing** him now, Senator McCain, but you have chosen not to… you, Sir, have helped… Osama Bin Laden… stay **free.**
**Free** to inspire and supervise the terrorists.
**Free** to plan or execute attacks here.
**You**, Sir, are **blackmailing** some portion of the American electorate into voting for your party, by promising to help in the capture of Bin Laden… **only** if you are made president!
I’d rather win an election than catch Bin Laden!
No more cynical calculation has ever been made in this nation’s history, Sir.
If you **lose** the election, Senator, are you **not** going to tell the President-Elect?
Are you intending to keep this a **secret** until the next election and your party’s next nominee?
Senator, as you and your Republicans shed your phony, crocodile, opportunistic tears tomorrow on 9/11 **TM**, in front of the utterly disingenuous banner “Country First”….
The **fact** is, you have shown that it is **John McCain** first, and the country **last.**
The **fact** is, Sir, by **holding out** on your secret plan to catch Bin Laden…
By searing those images into our collective wounded American psyche at your nomination last week…
Terrorists are not what you, John McCain, **fight**.
Terrorists… are what you, John McCain, **use.**
Good night, and good luck.
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