Imagine it is exactly eight years ago. President Bush has just stood in a flight-suit on an aircraft carrier and told us that major combat operations in Iraq are over. In the backdrop was a giant banner with ‘Mission Accomplished’ written across it. Then Marty McFly shows up in a DeLorean and shows you the following headline from eight years in the future:
President Who? It took that long?
It’s never easy to predict the future; that is for sure.
I am very happy that we finally got Usama bin-Laden. It’s tempting to gloat that it was a Democrat who finally got it done…Dick Cheney was too busy shooting his friends, etc. But that’s kind of petty. This is a good moment for all Americans. I was touched personally by the attacks. A co-worker lost his brother. My secretary lost a family friend. People were killed from my parent’s church. One of the heroes of Flight 93 lived in the town next to mine. I grew up in the New York suburbs. My father commuted there every day. It was always my playground and my first love. I’m extremely gratified that a degree of justice has been meted out.
I could talk about how much 9/11 warped our country and screwed up our priorities and even our morals. I could talk about how little this one death will matter in the bigger picture. But you know all that. Tonight’s a night to just celebrate. Tomorrow we can talk about what it all means in context. And about whether Mitt Romney still wants to run for president.
