The more attention I pay to the trivialities of the election, the stupider I get. The blogosphere is in a narcissistic phase right now, playing gotcha! with Big Media Inc.: How long will they ignore the Swift Vets' ad? Almost two weeks! How long before CBS begins to crack? Six days!? Wow! Look Ma, no centralization!
The biggest story on the on the Web, it seems, is the Web. And how clever we all are. I get sucked in too easily, and I play the game a bit, because it's seductively easy to repeat other people's conclusions, and it requires little mental effort on my part. Meanwhile, our enemies gather, and plan, and disperse.
On Saturday night, driving home from dinner with Pea and her visiting Pop, I spotted a light against the cloud ceiling, off in the darkness to my left. At first, I thought it was a car dealership--End Of Summer Sale-A-Thon! A billion dollars cash back (if you qualify)! Free ham!
It wasn't. It was 600,000 watts' worth of memorial: the twin shafts of "Tribute in Light" from Ground Zero, visible over forty miles away as they soared up into the overcast darkness.
So we drove through town and out the other side, to find a place away from the lights, with a clear view of the horizon. Earlier that day, there had been apple-picking at a local orchard, and its long driveway offered the perfect vantage point. At the crest of the hill we stopped the car and turned its lights off.
We're far enough in the country that the Milky Way is actually visible, a subtle glowing band across the dome of the sky, surrounded by a healthy coating of stars. Pop, a suburban denizen, was impressed with that. Even Pea, who was in SoHo on 9/11, spent more time looking up at the sky than out at the distant column of illumination.
I took some time away from them, looking towards Manhattan in the dark. That morning, I woke up at around 11:30, and thought, "Three years ago at this hour, I was walking towards the Queensboro Bridge, waiting for another plane to fall from the sky."
And that was all. There were apples to pick, and some local wine to drink, and present-day things to do.
But that night, watching the photonic ghosts of the towers from so far away that the twin columns of light merged into a single, hazy spear, I felt an odd mixture of sadness and disgust. Sadness, as I remembered the day, the things that I had seen, heard, and smelled. Disgust, as I realized that although those events were still dominating my figurative and literal horizons, our national political discourse is mired in stupid, petty squabbles devoid of substantive meaning.
Close to 3,000 Americans were murdered on our own soil. There was a strike on our nation's capital.
That day should have been the day that changed everything.
Instead, I fear that it is showing some of what constitutes the character of far too large a segment of the modern American polity, a character shaped first by the sacrifices of my grandparents' generation and then by the leisure of their indulgent children, who encouraged the theoretical sores of postmodern nihilism to fester, suppurate, and spread.
Now, the polity is so divided that what was bluntly obvious to my grandparents--the need for defense in the face of aggression--has become lost in a fools' chorus of loud, meandering rhetoric disguised as universal moral sensibility.
The Republic is under attack. It's not under attack by gays, or Republicans. It's not being targeted by Michael Moore, or Karl Rove. The provenance of forged memos and the validity of tarnished, 30-year old medals is not a threat to our citizenry.
We are engaged in a struggle with death-loving enemies that, should the opportunity arise, will not threaten the use of a nuclear weapon. They will simply use it.
Three years from the day I choked on the dust of a skyscraper as I fled downtown Manhattan on a bicycle, I am almost inclined to say that, should such an event occur, we will deserve it. We have so lost our way that we cannot agree to rise up in sweeping defense, or even in mere vengeance. The arrogance of the established media and the inane pandering of our political class are not things inflicted upon us. They are, by and large, our own creation.
Like the endless parade of reality-TV shows that wouldn't get made if people didn't watch them, our information mongers and our leaders wouldn't behave the way they do if their behavior wasn't continually rewarded with success and with power.
Will any of those who exploit our divisions assume responsibility for the blood of Americans who may die as a result of the petty, time-wasting bickering they encourage?
I doubt it.
Responsibility, these days, is quaint.
