What a Relief!

I watched Letterman last night mainly because I wanted to see Aaron Brown on Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show, which comes on right after Letterman. There was not one mention of 9/11 on Letterman’s Late Show. And what a relief! I thought his second guest, Martha Stewart, might possibly breach the ban when she said she’d been making food during the day for “the firemen”, but Letterman ignored the lead-in. The Bush administration has made a mockery of any and all 9/11 commemorations. And David Letterman’s total blackout of the subject was a blessing. Unfortunately, Craig Ferguson’s sentimental and maudlin trip down memory lane regarding his 9/11 experience played into this nation’s 9/11 orgies perfectly. And it left Aaron Brown nowhere to go but to replay his 15-hour CNN reporting tour de force of five years ago. What I wanted to know was what Aaron Brown has been doing since he was summarily canned by CNN last November. I wanted to know what his plans are now. But Ferguson would have none of that. What we got was sappy and sentimental memories and photos from five years ago. And the same mawkish nostalgia that everyone with a camera or microphone (or computer) was using to bolster ratings in one way and another. The only 9/11 anniversary “celebration” I could have gotten behind would have been for each and every program and event to heap shame on the Republican Party for using 9/11 to advance its political agenda. Since that was not about to happen, shunning the public memorials was the next best thing. I applaud David Letterman for doing just that. BTW, there was a 9/11 before America’s 9/11 in 2001. The first 9/11 happened on September 11, 1973. That’s when the Moneda Palace was bombed in Chile and Salvador Allende and General Augusto Pinochet seized power. That 9/11 was facilitated by US-sponsored and CIA-backed terrorists. When the Bush administration blathers about terrorists, many people in the world quake with fear because they are frightened out of their minds that American terrorists will attack their country and kill innocent citizens.