Monday, September 11, 2006
The last few minutes, but not the last word...
Americans are puzzled over why so many people in the world hate us. We seem so nice to ourselves. They do hate us though. We know that and we're trying to protect ourselves with more weapons. We have to do it I suppose but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn't make so many people in the world want to kill us.
Maybe you have to reach Andy Rooney's station in life to say what he did on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary. Love him or hate him for it, you have to believe he speaks for a certain number of other Americans who wouldn't dare say such a thing around the water cooler, much less to an audience of millions.
Rooney is one of the dwindling number who remember first-hand the attack on Pearl Harbor, which is about the only event widely considered comparable to 9/11. Rooney covered World War II for the
Stars & Stripes newspaper. It's hard to imagine he would have asked his readers, even in December of 1946, to think about what the United States had done to provoke the Japanese.
Historians have examined that question since then, without suggesting that we somehow had it coming to us. To give Rooney the benefit of the doubt today, he didn't say the United States actually deserved the attacks of 9/11 -- but I'll bet he came close enough to enrage a lot of people.
Rooney had the last word in a news program filled with meaningful, enterprising anniversary coverage. I doubt we've heard the last word about his contribution.
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