Of days of infamy... and memories

This morning, at an elementary school at which I work, an elderly gentleman (volunteer) strolled into the front office, and politiely asked the secretaries, "Do you know what happened today?" After the secretaries answered in the negative, the elderly gentleman stated, "64 years ago today, at between 11am and 12pm local time, the Japanese attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 Americans, and destroying 1/9th of our Navy in the process." After stating this, the gentleman said nothing. He walked out of the office quietly, on his way to the classroom in which he volunteers.

From here:

Although President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called Dec. 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy," it's been three generations and six decades since the Japanese air attack on the Navy base in Hawaii thrust the United States into World War II. The nation's collective consciousness has moved on, embracing more urgent events like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Pearl Harbor is relegated to a "museum quality" memory, one scholar says, rather than one more meaningful.

There is beyond a doubt truth to the above-cited story. But I, regrettably, will take it one step further. There are many Americans who have relegated yet another infamous date to nothing more than a "museum quality" memory, a distant mental footnote; rather than one more meaningful; despite the fact that this "memory" was reality only four short years and change ago; and despite the fact that the ones who perpetrated this "memory" are still enemies to this day. And even sadder is the fact that it didn't even take four years for democrat leaders to relegate this memory as such.

And these short memories conveniently continue; much to the chagrin of our brave soldiers, and to the delight of our enemies.

Trudy Rubin writes:

When historians look back at the Iraq war, they will divide it into the pre- and post-Murtha eras.

Before U.S. Rep. John Murtha called on Nov. 17 for an American troop withdrawal from Iraq within the next six months, the Bush administration turned a deaf ear to all war critics, implying that they were traitors. Since the hawkish Democrat from Pennsylvania spoke out, President Bush is extolling the need for ''honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq.'' So what happened?

I will give Trudy Rubin a small Kudo for being around 1 percent correct in her assertions. The Iraq war will indeed be divided into pre- and post-Murtha eras. The "pre-Murtha" era, when it was strongly suspected that democrats were capable of political opportunism to the point of sedition and/or outright treason; and the Post-Murtha era, when all doubt was removed.

Welcome to the Post-Murtha era.


(Filed under Iraq>, The Fifth Column)