The GOP and 9/11

Big Brother: (sorry for the weird A symbols - they appear when I blog from my mac...)

One of the emerging themes of the week has been the GOP fixation on 9/11.  There was a front-page article in the Times this morning profiling servers at restaurants in midtown where a lot of the delegate receptions are being held. Many of these employees had worked at Windows on the World and have to put up with listening to endless talk about 9/11, while at the same time having to keep their mouths shut about the friends and families they lost at the World Trade Center.

On the subway on the way into the city today I had a chat with a guy who works in the Garden.  He told us about how stifled any negative talk is and how they can tell their cell phone calls are all being monitored.  They, too, have to hear the delegates talk about almost nothing else but 9/11.

And it's true that in every brief encounter I've had with a delegate or other GOP supporter this week, they invariably bring up 9/11 and how could I be so ungrateful to the president who defended this country against the people who attacked us.  As if.

So, if you're wondering how it is that George Bush is commanding the support of so much of this country, just don't forget 9/11.  All the propaganda is working.  It doesn't matter that this administration has lied about education policy, Medicare "reform", who benefits from tax cuts, why we went into an unnecessary war in Iraq, that deficits are a good thing, and so on.  All these people see in their minds' eye is "9/11" and their hero, George W. Bush.