Tomorrow is the eight anniversary of the most heinous terrorist attack ever perpetrated on the United States. Thousands of our friends, family and fellow Americans were murdered in cold blood by vicious terrorists who hated America and what we stand for.
On September 19, 2001, a story ran in the Hyde Park Herald containing then-State-Senator Barack Obama’s response to the 9/11 tragedy. In this piece (quoted in this article from the New Yorker, under the heading “The Speech”), Obama expresses empathy for the murderers! Not anger, not disdain, not a word of sympathy for the victims. His concern was for the murderers
From Obama’s article:
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.
So are we to feel sorry for these people, Mr. President? It’s not like it was a mystery that there were terrorists out there in the world like this back in 2001. We knew they weren’t poor & uneducated, as Obama seems to believe here. Ponder the fact that it is just this kind of leftist “thinking” that is driving the Marxist/fascist policies emanating from the White House today.
Tomorrow, please pray for the families and friends of the victims, and pray for our country, that it not adopt the kind of thinking that Barack Obama expressed in 2001.
(h/t to Michelle Malkin for originally posting on this last September 11)
UPDATE: Contrast Barack Obama’s response with Tony Blair’s:
So what do we do? Don’t overreact some say. We aren’t. We haven’t lashed out. No missiles on the first night just for effect. Don’t kill innocent people. We are not the ones who waged war on the innocent. We seek the guilty. Look for a diplomatic solution. There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime. State an ultimatum and get their response. We stated the ultimatum; they haven’t responded. Understand the causes of terror. Yes, we should try, but let there be no moral ambiguity about this: nothing could ever justify the events of 11 September, and it is to turn justice on its head to pretend it could. The action we take will be proportionate; targeted; we will do all we humanly can to avoid civilian casualties.
But understand what we are dealing with. Listen to the calls of those passengers on the planes. Think of the children on them, told they were going to die. Think of the cruelty beyond our comprehension as amongst the screams and the anguish of the innocent, those hijackers drove at full throttle planes laden with fuel into buildings where tens of thousands worked. They have no moral inhibition on the slaughter of the innocent. If they could have murdered not 7,000 but 70,000 does anyone doubt they would have done so and rejoiced in it? There is no compromise possible with such people, no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must. Any action taken will be against the terrorist network of Bin Laden.
That is the response of a leader. Obama’s response was that of a coward.
Yes, I am angry. Again.

Thanks for reminding us of his "feelings" immediately after 9/11/01
USNJIMRET Thursday, September 10th at 9:09PM EDT (link)To many never heard it, the MSM finding his opinions about the “reasons” for the wanton murder of Americans an unnecessary detail during a Presidential Primary or Election.
I saw a tease today that the he will be at the Pentagon tomorrow, to participate in ceremonies for/about 9/11/01.
I have to say that I am honestly glad that I am no longer on Active Duty, for the thought of him, at the Pentagon, pretending to give a damn about those whose lives were destroyed……would make it a tougher day then it will already be.
Again, thanks for reminding us of his words of ‘concern’ for the victims of a murderous attack on our soil.
The Banality of This Nothing Man Sickens Me
farstar99 Saturday, September 12th at 12:56AM EDT (link)He wants us to forget 9/11 and wrap ourselves in his elitist city boy lifestyle.
Like we could forget people jumping from buildings to avoid being burned alive.
Conversations on cell phones with loved ones from people who knew they were going to die, but were resolved to fight to the end to save the lives of people they didn’t even know.
All because Democrats slept on the job, cozying up to the same terrorists Obama’s kneeling for now.
What does Obama do on 9/11?
Paints a few strokes in a living room for a photo op.
Coward.
We have a girlie man in the White House
ColdWarrior Saturday, September 12th at 1:09AM EDT (link)I recall Bill Clinton one time, while running for the presidency, bragging that he had never been in a fist fight.
Before hearing this, I had already determined (it seemed so obvious) that he was a charlatan and fraud.
But no man (or woman) who has admitted he has never engaged in pugilistic combat should ever be anywhere near the levers of power over the fate of this nation.
And, I suspect, our little girlie man in chief has also, like Slick Willie, never been in a fist fight.
Pathetic. Or, as Jed Clampett said occasionally, “Pitiful. Pi ti ful.
Thank you.
ColdWarrior
P.S. I have “friends” who actually voted for this creep. I now truly know them. As fools.
American first, conservative second and Republican precinct committeeman by necessity.
http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com, so you can say, “I became a precinct committeeman before it was cool.”
“Elections have consequences, my friends.” — John McCain
The fact that
Steph C Thursday, September 10th at 9:12PM EDT (link)some were well educated and all very well financed is merely something to be kicked into a grave along with those lost in order to advance a mindset that brings all attention to Obama.
They say: Ignorance is bliss. That may be so for awhile… until it kills you.
On the other hand I haven’t seen much blissful in those on the left who choose a fantasy world over facts. If anything they seem more angry than they were before they got what they wanted.
“[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772
Hillbilly Politics
This....ticks....me....off.
Xasteius Thursday, September 10th at 9:42PM EDT (link)If he empathizes so much, why isn’t he over there?
And he calls conservatives heartless…
Don’t leave the party, hijack it back!
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
When I grow up, I don’t want to be Reagan. I want to be Art Chance.
~Aaron Gardner
He's projecting. They knew what they were doing.
archer52 Thursday, September 10th at 9:53PM EDT (link)Obama likes hearing Obama ponder. He projects some of his own issues, as well as, those of his mentors.
The attackers were neither poor or uneducated, as we have learned. They were hard line soldiers in a war against the “Great Satan”. To change that frame of mind you will need generations. Until then, I’m afraid the quickest cure for driving that belief out of their mind is high velocity copper jacketed opinion changer.
Good thing we can manufacture millions of them.
Mao and Lenin Were Middle-Class Intellectuals
Ausonius Thursday, September 10th at 10:20PM EDT (link)Mao’s father became a fairly wealthy farmer and rice seller: Mao went to various schools, and worked as a librarian.
Lenin’s father was an educational bureaucrat: Lenin graduated with a law degree.
Stalin went to an Russian Orthodox seminary school for his education.
Hitler came from a middle-class background: he knew poverty after WWI only because of his pathological laziness which depended upon his manic delusion that he was a genius.
And speaking of delusions: poverty does not cause people to commit mass murder. If it did, the starving masses in Africa and India and Latin America would be constantly butchering thousands per day! Oddly, it is their educated dictators who live like kings who do the butchering: see Castro, Che, Chavez, Idi Amin, etc.
Q.E.D.
Aid and comfort to the enemy. A lefty founding principle.
redneck_hippie Thursday, September 10th at 10:52PM EDT (link)Other sacred traditions of leftists:
The ends justify the means.
Man is killing the planet.
Government is the solution. (Otherwise known as The Big Lie.)
“We must not lose our faculty to dare, especially in dark days.” - Churchill in March, 1942.
Remember NY-23.
Damn shame really..
smitch61 Thursday, September 10th at 10:54PM EDT (link)McCain did not fight harder. I mean gosh, look at all the information out there even without the media.
I Really Wonder If McCain Wanted To Lose
Ausonius Friday, September 11th at 8:02AM EDT (link)I do wonder if he did NOT want to be known as the person who defeated the first Afro-American presidential candidate of a major party, since there would be the constant charge of racism around any such win: “America is still racist! They elected the old white man instead of the young black man! What more proof do you need?”
McCain wanted to be liked by both sides, you can't ride two horses with one...
archer52 Friday, September 11th at 8:11AM EDT (link)McCain violated the cowboy rule. You can’t ride two horses with only one rear end.
I believe McCain wanted to win, as much as Dole did. His problem was trying to do as the “nice guy” and be liked by both sides.
His opponent was willing to do anything to win, including driving a stake through McCain’s chest.
Nobody should be surprised how that worked out.
Right! And Quoting NObama's Own Words...
Ausonius Friday, September 11th at 8:23AM EDT (link)…just like they are in this topic would have helped to defeat him.
Quoting the anger in NObama’s books, quoting the radical ideas, etc.
There is nothing ungentlemanly in that!
Oh well! I hope Republicans realize this now!
Not really a shame that McCain lost.
mbecker908 Friday, September 11th at 8:29AM EDT (link)He would be nothing more than an incremental Obama. He’s never met a problem more government couldn’t solve.
a question:
sickofitall Friday, September 11th at 10:39AM EDT (link)If this was common knowledge last year, why didn’t McCain use it? Gov. Palin certainly wouldn’t have held back.
“You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany.” - Rep. Paul Broun
She was being held back
Chong Friday, September 11th at 11:58AM EDT (link)I think she was being held back, McCain like archer52 said wanted to be like by both side. Maybe he really wanted to unite the country from our partisanship, I am willing to give him a benefit of doubt on this. In the way, I honor that somewhat because he was wanting to play it fair. Unfortunately, his opponent didn’t want to play fair. Obama broke his first promise while running, he was not suppose to accept donations the unconventional way if I remember correctly. Yet he was getting millions from online from who know where. There were speculation that over sea was funding his campaign. Another thing McCain went wrong, he under-estate his opponent radical ideas for America. Lot of things that was done by McCain seem like to throw the elections. One last note, I believe he was ahead before he postpone the campaign to go back to Washington to help form that first pork bill call “TARP”, that was when he lost the Independence.
United “We” stand, divided “We” fall
Yes, that's right
gonzo55 Thursday, September 10th at 11:59PM EDT (link)all we needed to avoid 9/11 was some good ol’ fashioned community organizing! If only Dear Leader Obama were president in 2001, the terrorists would have come to the White House for an arugula dinner instead of trying to blow it up. Then everyone could have bathed in the orgy of empathy that surely would have resulted.
“Facts are stubborn things” — Ronald Wilson Reagan
Fortunately,
gonzo55 Friday, September 11th at 12:00AM EDT (link)if Dear Leader really believes all this nonsense, we have just the community organizer to send over to Afghanastan to engage Al Qaeda. As near as I can tell, he’s sent his entire adult life doing community organizing and is not currently occupied in any other useful pursuit. I think after a rousing speech or two and a few sanctimonious references to his middle name, the bad guys will come around and we can all kumbaya and live happily ever after.
“Facts are stubborn things” — Ronald Wilson Reagan
Too many years of success
azred Friday, September 11th at 12:47AM EDT (link)Bred a whole country full of apathy. This country has not had any significant downturn until 9/11. We have prospered. The masses were lulled. Most were not paying attention. 9/11 temporarily galvanized the country, but still most were not paying attention.
Now we are paying attention. Only when the enemy is at the doorstep. And they were elected by these same masses that were not paying attention.
I hope this isn't considered a....
discerningconservative Friday, September 11th at 2:02AM EDT (link)threadjack, but everyone who is on twitter and not following allahpundit from Hot Air, you need to look at his twitter feed. You will have to scroll to the bottom and hit the more button a few times to get to the beginning of it, but it is well worth the trouble to read all of it.
Thanks
Everyday I have to remind myself that more Americans voted...
JadedByPolitics Friday, September 11th at 5:14AM EDT (link)for this idiot and then I have to pinch myself and think WHY? Well other then they were uninformed, misinformed and the media PROTECTED him. He disgusts me! I will NEVER allow this idiot to change 9-11 from anything other then the HORROR that it was. That 19 mostly SAUDI’s flew airplanes into buildings and killed 3000 of our citizens. Those citizens were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and they were AMERICANS!
Whoever has his enemy at his mercy &
does not destroy him is his own enemy
Well
Rod_Patrick Friday, September 11th at 5:24AM EDT (link)here’s a good paragraph from the Lady of the (wrong) Lake:
Today is the Day of Remembrance for the 3000 martyrs!!!!!!
No price tags indeed!
Let’s offer our prayers and honors to the martyrs! May their sacrifice remind us always!
9/11: Bing vs. Google
SoFiMil Friday, September 11th at 6:49AM EDT (link)Bing has a beautiful acknowledgment :
http://www.bing.com/
Google, meanwhile, has nothing to say:
http://www.google.com/
http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com
Again, Bing vs Google
vongruetz Friday, September 11th at 7:57AM EDT (link)After the post about the differences between the two sites on Flag Day, I decided to check again on 9/11 to see what the two sites offered. Bing, a beautiful picture of the 9/11 memorial light in NY. Google? Nothing. Google changed their home page to honor the anniversary of the invention of the printing press, but not 9/11? That is messed up.
I've switched to Bing and I don't find it limiting
6eorge Jetson Friday, September 11th at 8:50AM EDT (link)The biggest limiting factor is my ability to choose the proper keywords. I guess you’d call that my Bing Fu.
As some of you may be aware,...
Paul_In_Houston Friday, September 11th at 7:36AM EDT (link)… The Won is seeking to desecrate 9/11 as a “Day of National Service” instead, with the excuse that “We need to move on”.
I recall, years ago when we were toppling the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar whining to some journalist that we should “Get over it!”.
To which my response must be not only “No!”, but “Hell No!!!”.
Like many, I was at work on that day, learning of it when co-workers told me to check out CNN on the internet, and watched it play out, watching with horror when the buildings collapsed with so many still inside.
The next day, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, normally a fairly angry liberal, wrote a column ( reproduced at WTC Trbute - We’ll Go Forward From this Moment ) in which he observed…
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We’re frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae — a singer’s revealing dress, a ball team’s misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We’re wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though — peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people — you, perhaps — think that any or all of this makes us weak. You’re mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.
And concluded with…
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that’s the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange:
You don’t know my people.
You don’t know what we’re capable of.
You don’t know what you just started.
But you’re about to learn.
THIS is how I’ll remember 9/11, for a VERY long time to come.
The difference between what Obama said and what Van Jones said
bk Friday, September 11th at 7:41AM EDT (link)is that Van’s were a week earlier than Obama’s. Other than that….
September 11 - Anguish, Anger and America.
Kenny Solomon Friday, September 11th at 8:07AM EDT (link)September 11, America experienced “change”.
September 12, America instinctively knew “hope”.
A Communist-Statist “official holiday” declared in an attempt to re-write history, along with ceding to even one single person involved with tyranny from the bottom of society to the very top of government is worse than death to an America in tears and anger, about to fight for her freedom and very existence.
The usurpers know not the force about to be unleashed to rid our home of their kind forever.
God Bless America.
Of course you can have my guns……. Bullets first.
I didn’t say rounds, shells or magazines……
I said bullets first.
Muslim enemy and a President with Muslim name and sypmathies
usmc Friday, September 11th at 8:27AM EDT (link)Per Atlas Shrugs there’s a video from Al Qaeda that debunks Hussein’s opinion about poverty and what not. Many of the hijackers “had the world open to them”. They were well educated instead they chose to follow “Allah”.
Nobody can explain to me how a Country, whose military is fighting or trying to, an Islamic enemy voted for a candidate with an Islamic name and Islamic sympathies. Nobody!
I’ll be labeled a nut by many here probably but most of you have thought it.
If I was AQ I would’ve seen 11/04/08 as surrender. They’re coming here to fight.
Unholy Alliance
usmc Friday, September 11th at 8:40AM EDT (link)Because of our PC and the progressive disease that has infected our Country for 100 years we will have another 9/11 perhaps many more.
Germany is believed to be the next target. It’s only a matter of time before we experience a massive attack that will make 9/11 look like a car accident.
As we consume ourselves with the fascist policies of Obama and the progressives what’s happening under our noses?
MS-13 has been paid to smuggle possibly “thousands” of Islamic fighters over the years. Tunnels have been found on our border, well built tunnels. Over 30 terror training camps in the US run by Muslims.
An imam in Yemen spoke of a jihadist going through a tunnel from Mexico carrying a case of anthrax that would kill over 300,000 Americans in one hour. Our border is wide open funny he should say a tunnel.
Remember Mumbai, India? That was a template for what’s coming along with suicide, bombing and crude WMD attacks.
AQ linked group having a conference in Chicago. Like Horowitz said Islam and the left have an “Unholy Alliance”.
I won't even dignify..
Rightshift Friday, September 11th at 8:56AM EDT (link)… calling Obama “Mr. President” at this point, that snippet from the article is nothing more than pseudo-intellectual, non-sensical, psycho-babble framed in “round pear-shaped tones” like all his “speeches” and statements.
Expressing “empathy” for cold-blooded killers and fanatics. The idiocrat-in-chief, like all ideologues consumed by the leftist indoctrination machines of Columbia and Harvard, fails to understand that criminals, whatever their stripe or background, thrive on a civilized society’s understanding and empathy. Perhaps that is the tactic to ensure agitated confusion as Alinsky describes in order to systematically destroy a free society.
Those that perpetrated the acts that Obama had spoken about regarding 9/11, as well as others, with this kind of bent should be hunted down and destroyed, not given a glass of warm milk, cookies and a Kum-by-yah hug.
“Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.” — Frederic Bastiat
Calling this a tragedy instead of what it was, an act of war is part of history revision
archer52 Friday, September 11th at 9:07AM EDT (link)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_historiography
Not the first time it’s been done. Nor will we not see it again. We, the people who lived through it, must remember and tell our children the truth.
Those in charge control the books, the schools, and most of the media. This not by accident.
This from another website is the truth:
http://www.frugalsites.net/911/sept11.html
it's really a testament
sickofitall Friday, September 11th at 10:42AM EDT (link)to the sickness of all liberals, not just Obambi. I’m surprised that he hasn’t offered to turn the other cheek by giving Bin Ladin a free shot at Los Angeles (or a more conservative city like Dallas).
“You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany.” - Rep. Paul Broun
The first and last paragraph of Obama's speech....
robertkincaid Friday, September 11th at 12:32PM EDT (link)This is the rest of what he said….
Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.
We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.
Reason number 2 I didn't vote for him
Leopard1996 Friday, September 11th at 4:06PM EDT (link)I want a president that is going to say we are not going to rest until threats to our country are utterly and totally destroyed, and want Bin Laden’s or any other terrorist scumbag hanging from the antennae of the Empire States Building, and torched during the 6:00 news, and podcast for posterity. I don’t want a president telling me, I have to understand these savage animals.
And yes I felt the same way about Tim McVeigh and the Okalhoma City Bombings.
“The accumluated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, “Save Us!”….and I’ll look down and whisper, “No”…The Watchmen
not so fast
doogle Monday, September 14th at 11:36AM EDT (link)I think you’re reaching here.
“know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles” - Sun Tzu
As you may know, many American military men and CEOs look to Sun Tzu’s ancient text for wisdom.
I don’t think Obama is saying we should “feel sorry” for Islamofacists because they are poor and ignorant. I think he is saying we need to know our enemy. To extinguish the fires of Islamofacism we need to attack it (which we are currently doing in Iraq and Afghanistan) at the same time we deprive it of fuel to burn. Poverty and ignorance are two of the fuels.
Understanding the enemy one of the keys to defeating them.