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As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Monday, September 11, 2006

Nonpartisan

Michael Tomasky at The American Prospect notes that nobody's gonna mess up the Republican 9-11:

Both the Times and the Post note this morning that Bush laid two wreaths at ground zero last night in the company of George Pataki, Mike Bloomberg, and Rudy Giuliani. The Post goes well out of its way to remark that the event “left aside the partisan rancor” that…well, that Bush & Co. have enforced on the country since about 9-14.

If this event was so nonpartisan, where were Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton? Neither paper makes any mention of their having been there. I’m told that in fact they were not invited (they were at St. Paul’s church, where Bush went after laying the wreaths -- and where there were apparently no photographers!!). In what sense does an event that features four Republicans but excludes the two senators who were representing New York at the time of the event, but who happen to be Democrats, leave aside partisan rancor?


The Republicans have tried to own 9-11 since 9-14 and the bullhorn moment. They don't want to own the slow-motion tragedy of rescue and cleanup workers sickened and dying of lung diseases, instead trying to blame the City of New York:

Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman is blaming the city for not forcing Ground Zero workers to wear respirators, prompting a fiery response from the city's top lawyer.

In a "60 Minutes" interview to air Sunday, Whitman maintains that the nation's leading environmental agency did not have authority to enforce rules at the site, though the agency did warn the city about dangers in the air at Ground Zero [...]

Former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, in a response to questions posed to a spokeswoman for Giuliani, said, "The EPA publicly reported that the general air quality was safe and the city repeatedly instructed workers on the pile to use their respirators."

Five years later, early statements by public officials about air quality have butted up against the reality of thousands of people sickened as a result of working or living near the disaster site. That reality was underscored earlier this week by a Mount Sinai Medical Center study of first responders' health, showing that 7 out of 10 of them suffer chronic long ailments.

During the intensive debris removal operation, officials from both the EPA and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, though visible at the site, opted to maintain an "advisory role," records show. Therefore, no one forced workers -- through threat of fines or expulsion from the site -- to wear respirators until very late in the six-month effort.


In fact both the EPA and Guiliani's New York reopened Lower Manhattan before it was safe to breathe. If you want to own 9-11, own all of it.

The attacks on America had nothing to do with politics. Al Qaeda is not selective in their hatred and desire for fundamentalist global change. And no political party should dominate the response. We can argue and debate tactics and strategy. We cannot exclude one side or the other by eliminating them from the scene.

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