Boy, does today feel like Sept. 10, or what? Here we stand, just at the edge of fall, that most congenial of seasons.
Soon, the leaves will blaze with color and the air will turn invigoratingly crisp. Pro football starts this weekend. The kids are back in school and our parent-in-chief just gave them a nice, fatherly lecture about the importance of hitting the books.
It's true that this year, our contentment is disturbed by a noisy battle over an issue with enormous implications for America's economic and political future -- as well as the personal futures of every one of us -- government-run health care.
But be of good cheer. Friday is our very first congressionally declared, presidentially blessed, federally administered National Day of Service and Remembrance -- a day of feel-good words and feel-good deeds to counteract all of the negativity that has become associated with Sept. 11, 2001.
(I'm sorry to have to mention this, but that was the day when Islamic al-Qaida terrorists hijacked fuel-laden airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing about 3,000 people.)
Here's what the government Web site Serve.gov says about it:
"The tragic events of September 11, 2001 inspired Americans to come together in a remarkable spirit of unity and compassion. It was a stark reminder that our fate as individuals is inherently tied to the fate of our nation. Eight years later, September 11 continues to evoke strong emotion and is an homage to sacrifice and a call to action."Let's break that down, euphemisms and all.
Yes, Sept. 11, 2001, was "tragic" -- in the way that only premeditated, politically and religiously motivated mass murder can be. Which is to say it wasn't tragic at all. It was outrageous. It was infamous. It was an act of war -- of jihad, in the parlance of its perpetrators -- carried out against defenseless, unsuspecting, undeserving office workers and travelers.
The "unity" we witnessed among Americans then was actually righteous anger. The "compassion" was actually mourning -- for the office workers whose choices narrowed to burning or leaping, for the would-be rescuers whose devotion to duty cost them their lives, and for the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, who chose not to let evil have its way.
You bet our fate as individuals is "inherently tied to the fate of our nation." And yet today, the very same people who excoriated the previous presidential administration for "intelligence failures" want to subject CIA interrogators to criminal prosecution for trying to preserve individual lives and the nation. That kind of service is out of favor.
And yes, "eight years later, Sept. 11 continues to evoke strong emotion."
But if we can just put a more positive spin on it, maybe it won't so much anymore.
It feels like Sept. 10, all right -- Sept. 10, 2001. Before all of the nastiness. Before the pilots and flight attendants had their throats cut. Before the skyscrapers disintegrated. Before the funerals. Before the memorial services for the people whose bodies were never found. Before most of us had any inkling of how very, very deeply our attackers hated us.
But it's not Sept. 10, 2001. It's Sept. 10, 2009 -- one day short of eight years into a war Americans didn't ask for and grew weary of long ago.
Thanks to those CIA guys whose scalps the empty-headed left are demanding, and to a great many other people who defend us, we haven't had to declare other national days of service to take our minds off reality.
If anything, our defenders have done their work too well. They have given us a gift we don't deserve and can't afford: the return of our complacency.
We're more scared of the swine flu than of people who want to kill us.
We're worked up about "climate change" -- though, mercifully, less than we used to be -- rather than about people who want to impose culture change and law change and religion change upon us, at gunpoint if necessary.
Sept. 11, 2001, wasn't a bad dream. It happened, and it would be the height of folly to think that the people who made it happen are done with us.
By all means, remember the heroes and the victims this Friday and honor them, if you're so inclined, with some act of kindness. But remember also the killers, because when it feels enough like Sept. 10 to them, they will give us another Sept. 11.