Update: WELCOME Instapundit readers! Professor Glenn Reynolds just ROCKS!Via The Foundry, I first read today about this apparent effort to reframe 9/11 by liberal Democrats and by the perpetual Obama Campaign Machine, Organizing For America. This is not the first report I've seen about the effort to rewrite the story of 9/11. The effort last year to make 9/11 "A Day of Service" was the first time it actually struck me as truly likely that the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil was soon to be whitewashed.
The "Day of Service" is not offensive in and of itself. This was not actually conceived by Obama. A non-profit organization called My Good Deed began organizing 9/11 as a day of national service and remembrance back in 2001. In April of this year, Obama signed legislation to formally recognize it at such.
Where this all gets dicey is detailed in this report by The Foundry. The Organizing for America site has now scrubbed the post which outlined the actions suggested for 9/11. In short, they are hijacking the day as one to lobby for Obamacare. They "sent out a notice to its 'grassroots' supporters. It asked them to wage a coordinated phone campaign for health care by calling their U.S. Senators on September 11 – also known as Patriot Day in honor of the thousands of Americans killed by Al Qaeda terrorists eight years ago...". The Foundry has the screenshot of the post in question which has now been taken down.
As if turning 9/11 into a Day to Lobby for Health Care isn't enough, there's more. As The Foundry points out, their rhetoric is simply incredible. The Organizing for America post says, “All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.”
Are you kidding me?
As Obama is so fond of saying, "let me be clear." This rhetoric is on Barack Obama's Organizing for America website. Do I think he actually wrote the post? No. Of course not. But isn't, at some point, he accountable for what's on it? It's barackobama.com, for crying out loud. It's his perpetual campaign website: you can text "Hope" to get his updates; he's on Twitter and Facebook and MySpace and YouTube, and...well, under the "Obama Everywhere" tab, you can link up ... everywhere, according to this site.
At some point don't you think he ought to quit campaigning and actually lead? Is he running for re-election already? Why does this website still exist?
It exists so his propagandists can post highly charged rhetoric as they did today and he can basically not be held accountable; it wasn't really on WhiteHouse.gov. Can we report Organizing for America to flag@whitehouse.gov? Fishy?
The bigger point, to me, is that the memory of 9/11 is being hijacked. That's an incredibly poor verb to use for this story, but it's the most accurate.
Call your congress-critters and lobby for Obamacare! And if you have a moment, remember the 9/11 victims...
Matthew Vadum at The American Spectator was on to something earlier this week when he posted the story about the August tele-con sponsored by the White House, which included Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus among others, in which they call for 9/11 to now be for something "positive" and "forward-leaning." Vadum's take was that 9/11 as a day of remembrance rekindles the fear, works against the liberals, and that's why they're trying to reframe the day. He could be right.
The bottom line is that it's just wrong to politicize the day EITHER WAY. I don't think Republicans have done that; I could be wrong, but I don't recall the Republicans marshalling supporters to capitalize on the day to accomplish a political objective.
Vadum says "With the help of the Obama administration, the coalition is launching a public relations campaign under the radar of the mainstream media -- which remains almost uniformly terrified of criticizing the nation's first black president -- to try to change 9/11 from a day of reflection and remembrance to a day of activism, food banks, and community gardens."
Okay, so maybe those things - food banks, community gardens, activism, even political lobbying for your own personal cause - maybe those are all laudable. But why 9/11? As Vadum asks, there are 364 other days in the year to designate for that.
The bottom line is that it's difficult to ignore the move by the left, and by Obama, to rebrand the day. It does seem as if they are trying to whitewash the terror and fear that the nation felt and even the patriotism we felt immediately afterward; the America First coming-together attitude we all felt. Then, we WERE one. Then, we bonded together.
Now, we are ripped apart. And the Organizing for America post today further divides us.
Update 2: Now a thread at Memeorandum. Thanks Memeo!
And linked by The Other McCain, Stop the ACLU, American Power, Villainous Company .
