GAIL COLLINS NAILS IT

Collins’s New York Times op/ed tagline this morning: “It is the genius of the Republican Party in recent decades that it continually selects candidates who make the ones who went before appear better. Remember how great George H.W. Bush seemed once we’d lived with his son for a while? And I have a strong suspicion that whoever the nominee is this time will make us yearn for the magic that was W.”

Collins column was about the Republican candidates’ first debate Wednesday night and the paucity of serious discussion. I didn’t watch it. Apparently, the big aim of all contenders is to be the front-runner in the Anyone But Romney horserace. Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Jr., Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul were participants in this first silly-season event.

And, of course, the candidate field is still open to the come-lately crowd. Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin are fidgeting in the wings, waiting for their big moment. Now that puppet-master Ed Rollins has ditched Bachmann, one wonders where he is going to land next. And who will Karl Rove bless with his encyclopedic knowledge of below-the-belt campaign tactics?

Already, we see ultra-conservative groups like the Liberty Institute in Texas coming out with erroneous facts about Obama. Today, it is saying it was Obama who passed legislation against groups offering unwanted prayers at veterans’ funerals against the family wishes. In fact, it was George W. Bush who enacted this ruling.

As we come closer to Sunday’s 10th anniversary of the 9-11 attack and the lugubrious, contentious, sentimental, fact-ignoring memorials that are sure to take possession of TV and cyberspace, let us not forget the woeful response of the leaders at the time. Particularly President George W. Bush who sat as though paralyzed and uncomprehending for seven minutes while he waited to be told what to do. And let us not forget the ways the Republican administration used the 9-11 attack and the lies it told in order to further its nefarious political aims. 

The best memorial to 9-11 this Sunday would be to turn off our computers and TV, sit quietly at home or in church, offer prayers for the dead and contemplate making the world a more peaceful planet.