Need I remind any of you that "liberal" NYC and "liberal" DC

[elperromagico]

were the primary targets of 9-11?

Need I further remind you that the biggest potential targets of future terrorist attacks (mostly big cities like LA, NYC, et cetera) are, for the most part, politically "liberal"?

[Greyhound]

1. Sorry, I don't get your point. Please elaborate. n/t

[Goldmund]

3. San Francisco, Chicago

Enough elaboration? :)

[elperromagico]

4. Rove implies that liberals didn't know how to deal with 9-11,

yet conveniently leaves out the fact that two of the major targets of 9-11 were cities known for their political liberalism.

[Goldmund]

5. Not only that...

...but they remained liberal (or even, arguably, became more so) AFTER 9/11.

People who actually COULD be targets of terrorism, people who actually DO have a reason to worry don't accept Bush's agenda.

[elperromagico]

7. Right. Kerry got nearly 90% in DC.

not surprising, of course, (DC has been voting Dem in prez elections since it first voted for LBJ in '64) but it was the highest percentage ever received by a Democratic presidential candidate.

As for Manhattan, I think Kerry got somewhere near 83%.

Ronald Reagan did better there than Bush, if memory serves, and that was without a terrorist attack.

You'd think that if these people - the ones most personally affected by 9-11 - felt that Bush was keeping them safe, they would have been more willing to support him in his reelection bid.

[Doomy]

8. DC

was more of a target for bush bin laden but the plane crashed in PA.

[Bridget Burke]

2. Houston is liberal--for Texas.

And the Ship Channel allows barely inspected container ships to arrive at the Port of Houston every day. After winding past about a hundred petrochemical plants.

[Kurovski]

6. But didn't alot of conservatives or Republicans work

in the WTC and Pentagon? I'm pretty sure they did. In the WTC people from other countries were also murdered.

I don't think this is the same as the obviously domestic attacks on dems in the mailing of Anthrax.

I would think that the next attack would be in a port. Those are being ignored by the Republicans in charge.

[elperromagico]

10. My point is not that liberals were the sole victims of 9-11.

My point is that for Rove to say that conservatives were the only ones who responded "properly" to 9-11 is an insult.

I'll wager that anybody living in NYC or DC on 9-11 - liberal, conservative, independent, or what have you - was pretty damned hard-hit by 9-11. And I'll further wager that most of them - liberal, conservative, independent, or what have you - were saying, "Let's get the bastards who did this," as were most of us.

I doubt anybody in those "liberal" cities - anybody who spent the day worrying about the safety of their friends and family members - was saying, "You know, whoever did this needs therapy."

[Kurovski]

23. Thanks for the clarification.

Yes, the "therapy" comment was a bunch of crap, adding to the whole of rove's lie.

[NorCalDem]

9. Jon Stewart

well, more specifically Steven Colbert had a great line about this after the reelection last fall. I don't remember the exact quote, but their conversation went like this...

Jon: Wouldn't you think that people in NYC (which is largely liberal) who have dealt first hand with terrorism and homosexuals in our community would know the best way to handle these issues.

Genius Colbert: "No Jon, see these people in red states have the luxury of being able to observe these issues from a safe distance, thus making them more capable of determining the best way to deal with them. So on behalf of the blue states, I would like to thank the red states, for saving us from ourselves."

And the crowd went wild. Comedy at its best!

[rkc3]

11. Was thinking of the same segment myself - good to hear I'm not alone.

[pointless]

12. I don't think they cared

whether the city was liberal or not. They just hit two of the most important cities and buildings in the nation. Attacks on large cities have the potential to kill more people because of the dense population. It makes sense if you just want to kill indescriminately.

[elperromagico]

14. The fact remains that most of the big cities are considered "liberal."

Name one person in NYC or DC who said on 9-11, "I think these terrorists need therapy." If these "liberal" cities, hardest hit by 9-11, didn't feel that way... who is Rove talking about?

For that matter, I doubt you could find many people in the whole country who didn't think that the best course of action post 9-11 was to go after the people responsible for the attacks.

So who is Rove talking about?

[Goldmund]

16. Actually,

I don't accept that Rovian litmus test. I, for one, did not think that a swift unilateral action by the US was the best reponse to the attacks. It became clear to me that the world was plagued by a huge inherent problem, that no rah-rah-letsgetum military action could solve. I believed that there should have been a global anti-terrorist front of some kind formed, and that 9/11 was a crucial moment in global history, and that response to it would determine global dynamics in years to come. Long story, but I (from NYC) didn't think that "letsgetum" would solve anything.

And it didn't. We did not "get those responsible" even WITH that military action, so there isn't really much to argue about here.

[elperromagico]

18. But you didn't, as Rove claims,

cry out for "therapy and understanding" for the terrorists.

You know, one of the big reasons why I oppose Bush is because he dropped the ball on 9-11. I was willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt after the WTC/Pentagon attacks. I assumed that he would "do the right thing." Of course, he didn't. Not only did he fail to address the problem of terrorism but he gave the terrorists a shiny new stick (Iraq) to beat us about the head with.

[Goldmund]

19. You're absolutely right.

The farthest thing from it -- I wanted them stopped. And I was mulling through ways to stop them, and "therapy" and "understanding" were not anywhere near my list.

Bush's aim wasn't to "address the problem of terrorism"; it was to use the attacks as his "new Pearl Harbor" (in the words of PNAC) to implement an agenda unrelated to terrorism.

[elperromagico]

20. The closest thing to Rove's statement that I can find, in fact,

is this quote:

"What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."

I didn't even know Jerry Falwell was a liberal.

[pointless]

17. I haven't

even seen what Rove said yet. I wasn't really interested because I don't care about anything that comes out of his mouth.

I know most big cities are liberal, I was not trying to say otherwise. Just that the political makeup of the target cities was probably a non issue for those who attacked the US.

[Goldmund]

15. That's not the point.

It's not about whom Bin Laden wanted to kill. It's about the fact that it just so happens that the only people in direct danger of terrorism are those who live in overwhelmingly liberal areas, which remained liberal after 9/11 and loathe Bush. You should have been in NYC during the RNC -- Bush, the cowboy who will save America from terrorism, is despised in cities that are actually affected by terrorism.

No terrorist is going to waste his WMD on a mall in Buttfuck Nebraska. They are, generally, safe from terrrorism in the Red States. Isn't that a modern paradox?

[BrendaStarr]

24. Maybe that's why neocons are looking for a 2nd 9/11

That's what I got from Wolcott's article at http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/06/superpatriot_pe.php

and the article he linked to at the American Digest.

[Goldmund]

25. If past history is a good indicator...

...what another 9/11 would do is make the red states redder and the blue cities bluer. Especially if it happened in a blue city -- which, chances are, it would.

[NinetySix]

13. Oh, sure -- LIBERALS were the target of the attacks!

But what about the anthrax attacks in the Senate? Huh, what about those?

Oh yeah, those were totally on liberals, too. Kinda makes you think....


For a long time, I was LIHOP. Call me a cynic, but I'm starting to consider MIHOP.



side note: Post 600! Hell yeah!

[maxsolomon]

21. to al queda, we're ALL liberals

they attacked the WTC because it was easy to hit, and an appropriate target for enemies of modernity. the civilian deaths were intended to make us "feel their pain".

they attacked the pentagon because it was a legitimate military target. same for the white house or congress, or wherever the 4th plane was headed.

i am the one progressive who thought we should offer them "therapy" -i said we should drop the "love bomb". shower islam with apologies & presents. but even i thought we needed to invade afganistan & fuck the taliban up.

[elperromagico]

22. Agree on your point about Al Queda's perception of us.

Good final paragraph too. :D