It’s Official
Russell Shaw has retreated into the space that Oscar Wilde described: "Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow". Mr. Shaw has amply - very amply indeed - proved how very, very shallow he is.
It strikes me as more than a little ironic that some self-regarded patriotic conservatives would somehow interpret my analytical, "what woud (sic) happen if" I Hope And Pray We Don't Get Hit Again BUT…post as a call for the enemies of America who hit us on 9/11/01 and cost the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people to hit us again.
Not only because I wish for the death of no one, but because many of these same people are among the first to agree with Ann Coulter that for speaking out against the way the war on terror has been conducted since they lost their husbands, some of the 9/11 widows are "harpies."
By the way, see my post about that whole sorry escapade here.
I also find it ironic that these are many of the same readers who would question judging the morality of the political consequences of the losses of more Americans when they are among the first to rationalize the loss of more than 2,000 troops in a war waged predominantly against a nation who, unlike Bin Laden's hosts in Afghanistan, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then again, I guess some of those readers are among those who still think Saddam was involved in 9/11.
But on the broader scale, some critics may fail to realize that for millions of Americans, terrorism is a frequent presence. Not the terrorism of a shoe-bomber, or of trumped up orange alerts based on intercepts of guys shouting "Jihad" in an Internet chat room, but the real psychological and economic terrorism often visited on Americans in the guise of:
Oh, do please go on and read Mr. Shaw's bathos-filled explanation of what real terrorism is to him. The insincerity of his sincerity will overcome you. He's obviously trying to sell a city or two. As to his "defense" of his previous garbage:
1) I don't agree with Ann Coulter and have criticized her.
2) I don't rationalize the war in Iraq as he describes it. I simply think it needed to be done.
His rationalization of what constitutes terrorism cheapens any real debate about any of the subjects he raises. His "calculus" is morally reprehensible and his "justification" makes him look like what he is: very serious, and very, very shallow.
Very shallow.





