Stu Bykofsky | I Was Wrong About Another 9/11
Stu Bykofsky | I was wrong about another 911
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/colu...THER_9_11.html
8/13/2007
MY HYPOTHESIS last week that another 9/11 attack would unite America was wrong, judging by e-mail and voice-mail responses. When I stopped reading at 1,000 (lots more unread) roughly 65 percent disagreed with me, many violently and obscenely.
Published early Thursday, the column received moderate response until it was posted on Web sites from right (Drudge) to left (CrooksandLiars). Then my world exploded and I became the flavor of the day.
Interview requests rained in from radio (local, national and Canadian) and TV (Fox News, CNN Headline News.) I accepted as many as I could.
Doing what it was supposed to do, the headline captured attention, but it was slightly off. It said a 9/11 attack is "needed," which was a bit beyond what my column said.
I led my column saying, "I was thinking another 9/11 would help America." I was speculating on the effect of an attack, not calling for it. Later I said I had no doubt terrorists are planning to attack us again. "If it is to be, then let it be." I am resigned to an attack, not calling for it.
In the first 12 hours, I received more than 2,000 e-mails and close to 100 voice mails.
I'm going to give some space to them here, starting with two that arrived consecutively that illustrate our national discord.
"Couldn't agree more," writes mgoodman1, following this from tblizz: "What are you? Front man for the Mossad?"
That revealed a repeated strain of anti-Semitism. Consecutive messages called me a coward and brave, a traitor and a patriot, even a terrorist. Lots of curse words, too.
Speaking for a minority, frogmanlike insists "Our govt. engineered 9/11, you dumb sh--. But they had help from the Bilderbergs and Israelis."
Taking another minority view, kevinorton says, "Five years have passed and no attack, Mr. Bush must be doing something right."
Speaking for a greater number is thomas, who writes, "George Bush and his henchmen are solely responsible for the failure to capture and build on that spirit." At the same time, "The lion's share" of the division, says bryandunn, "belongs at the feet of elected Democrats and their flacks in the mainstream media."
After calling me a "treasonous, traitorous, lying bastard," duane offers an off-topic Consolidated Conspiracy Theory that "the FBI, CIA, organized crime and Cuban exiles . . . executed JFK on 11/22/63."
Rather than Iraq, "perhaps it is the rising tide of fascism inside our country and the imperialism our government exhibits that turns us off," suggests vermontt.
"The enemy is corporate greed," adds aminn1042. "And, yes, it is the Democrats as well as the Republicans drinking from this corporate trough."
"America needs a president that can handle another such episode and not screw the pooch as badly as our insane boy king George," writes bonethug. "Given the current crop of posers, whiners and screaming lunatics that are running for America's highest office, we shouldn't hold our collective breath."
"Why should al Qaeda do us such a favor when we are inflicting far more fatal wounds into the fabric of America than they ever could?" asks TMHUDS1.
"No matter who wins the next Presidential election, we must, as a nation, stop this type of disgusting hatred if our country is to survive," pleads Ronfel.
If Ronfel is talking about America's destructive infighting, maybe that's what I should have said in my column.
But who would have paid any attention to that? *
