NEW YORK TIMES FATIGUE
"Again it comes, for the sixth time now--2,191 days after that awful morning--falling for the first time on a Tuesday, the same day of the week." Thus began a front-page, 1,664-word article by N.R. Kleinfeld in last Sunday's New York Times headlined, "As 9/11 Draws Near, a Debate Rises: How Much Tribute Is Enough?"
For mental health reasons, THE SCRAPBOOK tends to avoid reading all 1,664 words of portentous thumbsuckers in the Times. Fortunately, the nut-graf of this one was right near the top: "Each year, murmuring about Sept. 11 fatigue arises, a weariness of reliving a day that everyone wishes had never happened. It began before the first anniversary of the terrorist attack. By now, though, many people feel that the collective commemorations, publicly staged, are excessive and vacant, even annoying."
Is this true? Is there really a debate about 9/11 ceremonies outside the pages of the New York Times? Are Americans really suffering from "9/11 fatigue"? Do many Americans find the 9/11 commemorations "annoying"?
The Times's data points consist of four family members who lost relatives on 9/11 (they're divided on the "fatigue" issue), three random individuals (all fatigued), and a few mental health professionals (somewhere between concerned and fatigued, as mental health professionals tend to be).
The first quotation goes to a nursing supervisor from Massachusetts: "I may sound callous, but doesn't grieving have a shelf life? We're very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let's wind it down."
Almost all of the individuals quoted
focus on 9/11 as a day of loss. One compares it to the Minneapolis bridge collapse, another to a tornado. There's no mention of 9/11 as an attack, or an act of war. And no mention that it was a day of American heroism.
THE SCRAPBOOK was reminded that this is not new for the New York Times. Already, three years ago, Times columnist Thomas Friedman was criticizing the Bush administration for being "addicted to 9/11." Friedman looked forward to the day when September 11 would once again be restored "to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them--the bad guys--not about us. We're about the Fourth of July."
At the time, in October 2004, we commented: "We at THE WEEKLY STANDARD yield to no one in our loyalty to the Fourth of July. But September 11, 2001, also cannot help but define us 21st-century Americans. And it defines us not simply in terms of those we have to fight, and defeat. For September 11 is not simply about 'the bad guys,' about the attacks on America. September 11 is also about our response. It is about the police and firefighters in New York, the servicemen and women in the Pentagon, and the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. September 11 was a day of infamy. But it was also a day of bravery, and of nobility. And it could go down in history as a day that began an era in which the American people, and their leaders, rose to the challenges before them--an era in which they acted wisely, and steadfastly, and honorably."
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