September 12, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston
“Remember how the whole country seemed united?” someone asked yesterday, referring to the months following Sept. 11, 2001 and implicitly comparing the mood of the country then to what we have now.
Yes, it seemed only natural that when we felt that the whole country was under attack from the outside, we would forget internal differences. But now I’m wondering about the counterfactual:
What if Obama had been elected in 2000, and it was Obama who had been in office nine months when the attacks occurred. How would the Republicans, those in office and those in the media – the Joe Wilsons, the Limbaughs and Coulters and Fox TV – as well as the birthers and other good citizens who have been showing up at town hall meetings, how would they have reacted?
3 comments:
that's a rhetorical question, right?
I'm with SocProf...
You're joking, right?
I know what we think they'd have done, but what would they say if you asked them this question? And if they did criticize an Obama administration under those circumstances, how would they have done it, and how would it have played out with the rest of the country?
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