President Obama, Inspired to Lead by 9/11

Jake Tapper confuses me with this bit. Seemingly opens with a rise above partisan hackery, but then descends firmly into it.

That’s because the issues brought to the forefront of the political debate — the importance of national unity, the wisdom of going to war in Iraq, the balance between liberty and security — are ones that the then-University of Chicago constitutional law lecturer found so compelling, he felt a renewed need to influence that debate. In short, 9/11 in many ways compelled Barack Obama to become a national leader.

On the word of "sources close to the President", the 9/11 attacks hastened Obama's "sense of urgency" to emerge upon the national stage.

This explanation of Obama's opposition to the Iraq war (for which there are reasons enough to argue, without casting him as some kind of jaw-set 9/11 hero), declaring (without evidence) that his burning desire to lead the nation was somehow born of his determination to "renew the debate" as a national leader.. is just silly in the extreme.

Rechurned nonsense, "the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, (it seemed to Obama), derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others.."

Are you kidding me? Please recall the suffering of and our inability to connect with the 9/11 murderers.

Mohamed Atta, a student of architecture from a middle-class family in Egypt, pilot of the first plane to hit the towers.

Marwan al-Shehhi, UAE, who was also fortunate enough to move to Hamburg and study.

Saudi Hani Hanjour, who was so downtrodden he was able to come to the US to learn how to fly, badly, and went home and couldn't get a job as a pilot.

And Lebanese Ziad Jarrah, the son of a wealthy family.

I could go on. I know the "inability to imagine and connect with suffering" crap were Obama's words, not Tapper's. Still, dude, you could show a little professional skepticism before repeating nonsense in your "Obama was Inspired by 9/11" stuff. Can I definitively prove he wasn't?

No I can't.

Do I believe for a moment he was?

No, I don't.

article via adamsbaldwin, on Twitter. Vid via LauraW, another skeptic.

posted by Dave In Texas at 12:43 PM

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