The official opening of the 9/11 museum brought President Obama to New York and sparked fresh reminders of the horror of that awful day. The president called the site “sacred” and gave a moving speech about the American spirit, saying, “Like the great wall and bedrock that embrace us today, nothing can ever break us.”
It is the right thing to say and the right place to say it. But is it true? Is the American spirit really unbreakable?
I have my doubts.
There are many examples that say our spirit is breaking if not already broken. One involves a Wall Street Journal report that, six years after the housing bubble popped and sank the economy, federal officials want to lower mortgage standards again so more people can buy houses that they can’t afford. Been there, done that would seem to be the logical response, but the idea is gaining momentum because so few people can legitimately qualify for credit that the only way to spur housing growth is to junk the standards.
The same thing is happening in schools. Americans overwhelmingly agree that our educational system, once the envy of the world, is now lagging.
The cry to challenge students spawned a movement to raise the bar through the Common Core curriculum, but it is now grinding to a halt in New York and other places. The problem: Too many students are failing the tougher tests, making teachers look bad, parents unhappy — and politicians nervous.
So the standards are being shuffled aside, and self-esteem is back as the new measure of success. More students can appear to be learning and, presumably, that will make the adults happy, at least temporarily.
Because this retreat from rigor in favor of cultural “social promotion” is playing out in a million different ways in our vast society, the world sees that America is going soft and embracing decline. A loss of respect for our nation is now nearly universal. No wonder: If we don’t respect our own ideals, why should others?
The world’s two next largest powers certainly have taken note, and are acting as if they have nothing to fear from America.
Russia’s aggressive expansion into Europe and China’s warlike moves in East Asia carry a warning of historic menace. They are on the march and determined to expand their spheres of control.
Worse, Vladimir Putin arrives in China next week in a visit heavy with symbolic and real significance. There will be trade deals, joint military maneuvers and the clear imagery of cooperation in the bid to further erode the power of America and the West.
It is not hard to imagine Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping raising a glass to toast Obama’s health. His tenure is their opportunity. Similarly, the mullahs of Iran see a clear path to nuclear weapons, a development that could spark a major war.
Which brings us back to the 9/11 museum. The worst terror attack in the nation’s history was, in hindsight, inevitable. It followed our victory in the Cold War, a period marked by heated debates about how to spend the “peace dividend” we got from cutting our military. We celebrated by taking what somebody called “a holiday from history.”
We were so drunk with contentment that we didn’t notice that Osama bin Laden declared war on us. The first attack on the World Trade Center came in 1993, followed by bombings of our embassies in Africa. In October 2000, the USS Cole, a warship, was the target of suicide bombers off Yemen. All those attacks were carried out by al Qaeda, which struck again one year later and finally woke us up.
And now we are going back to sleep. “The tide of war is receding,” Obama says, without ever saying the word victory. He cut our military already, and proposes to cut it again, making it smaller than it was before World War II.
But wars don’t end until one side wins, and this one isn’t over just because we want it to be. If 9/11 didn’t teach us that, we missed its most important lesson.
She’s a woman out of ‘Times’
After the publisher of The New York Times fired editor Jill Abramson, the paper’s article on the decision illustrated how bias shapes its journalism. The front-page piece used stereotypes of her behavior to demolish her and double standards to excuse the behavior of her male successor, Dean Baquet.
The article called Abramson “polarizing and mercurial,” said “she was accused by some of divisiveness” and faulted her “management style,” a phrase reserved for women executives. It did not cite a single person saying any of those things even though anonymous, personal attacks are supposedly verboten at the Times.
As for Baquet, the article painted him as often angry, but always because of something Abramson did. It recounted an incident where he “angrily slammed his hand against a wall in the newsroom” after a meeting with her. It said he was “frustrated working with her,” without saying whether he had good cause. And it hinted that the final straw came when he was “angered” over her decision to make an important hire without consulting him.
Gender bias at The Grey Lady? Perish the thought, even as credible reports say Abramson was paid significantly less than her successor and less than men of equal rank throughout her 17-year career there.
The paper’s content was a mixed bag under Abramson, but there is no denying she “leaned in” long before the term was popular. She even got a tattoo in Times font.
In hindsight, that was her mistake. She should have just gotten angry and punched a wall. Then she might still have her job.
The takeaway for women trying to climb the Times ladder: Just be a man about it.
Intentional foul
Here’s a first: Reader Bruce Kowal accuses me of being too kind to Mayor de Blasio, saying I shouldn’t assume the mayor has “good intentions.”
“Children have good intentions, but they are immature,” he writes. “Maybe we should retrieve words that were common in the 19th century: the Fool and Foolishness. De Blasio is a fool, and his policies are foolishness. To credit him with good intentions is, well, foolishness.”
A mug’s Games
It’s great that Albany and City Hall are talking about trying to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to the city — as long as talk is all they do. New York needs the Olympics like it needs another Alec Baldwin.
Over the Hill, yet?
It’s six months before the 2014 elections, yet every day brings a breathless account of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for the White House. Must we?
And must she? Can’t we all just get along without her for a while, and can’t she just get along quietly without us for a while?
Apparently not, in which case we’re doomed. Thirty months of all Clinton, all the time will result in national madness.
Maybe we’re already there. On Friday, Politico had eight Clinton stories posted at the same time. Yes, eight.