The Commentariat -- September 11

Maureen Dowd writes what we've all been saying: "When the president stays insulated with his little circle that doesn’t know how to push his messages, and he lets the nihilist Republicans go unchallenged in their crazy claims to be saving the country they’re hurting, he sets the stage for Rick Perry. It’s still impossible to sum up what Obama’s presidency is about right now, except saving his own job." ...

... I've posted a comments page on Dowd's column on Off Times Square. Write on this or something else.

Paul Krugman: "What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons."

President Bill Clinton on the heroes of Shanksville Flight 93. CW: try not to tear up:

     ... President Bush's speech is here. Vice President Biden's speech is here. ...

... Peter Kaplan of New York Magazine on New Yorkers, before and after 9/11.

Alexander Cockburn of Nation of Change: "You can find America's future in blueprints minted in business-funded think tanks 30 to 40 years ago at the dawn of the neo-liberal age: destruction of organized labor, attrition of the social safety net, erosion of government regulation and a war on the poor that will be fought without mercy at every level. Last year, the New York police stopped and questioned 601,055 people — predominantly blacks and Hispanics — and those numbers were up 13 percent for the first six months of this year.... Whoever the Republican presidential candidate may be, they face in Obama an opponent who agrees with at least half of what they say. In 40 years, I've not seen a gloomier political landscape."

Alexander Bolton of The Hill: Economists say President Obama's jobs plan could help the economy; Wall Street was unimpressed. ...

... Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "The dismal state of the economy is the main reason many companies are reluctant to hire workers, and few executives are saying that President Obama’s jobs plan — while welcome — will change their minds any time soon." ...

... Frank Rich and Adam Moss of New York Magazine assess President Obama's jobs speech. ...

... George Packer of the New Yorker: the night Obama faced off against the nihilists. ...

... Rick Hertzberg: "... Lincoln didn't have to deal with so many of the sort of people of the type we would today call 'Republicans.'”

Gory Videogame Producers Get Bog Tax Breaks. David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "Those tax incentives — a collection of deductions, write-offs and credits mostly devised for other industries in other eras — now make video game production one of the most highly subsidized businesses in the United States.... Video game developers receive such a rich assortment of incentives that even oil companies have questioned why the government should subsidize such a mature and profitable industry."

Right Wing World

Andy Borowitz: "The Department of Homeland Security said today that it was studying several 'credible threats' made to the United States government in a two-hour broadcast Wednesday night from a location believed to be the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.... In reviewing the two-hour tape, Homeland Security officials said they found threats to some of the most essential functions of the US government, from Social Security to the Federal Reserve.... But the most terrifying moment in the tape came when [one] speaker received thunderous applause from the audience after threatening to execute people." For reference, see the Commentariat of September 8 and 9; thanks to reader Bonnie for the link. ...

... That was funny. This is not -- and as unbelievable as it seems, it's true. Judd Legum of Think Progress: on the eve of the September 11 anniversary, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced that in order to offset the costs of Hurricane Irene emergency relief, Republicans have written a bill that, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) explains: "slashes funding for grants to equip and train first responders by 40 percent. This is on top of the 19 percent cut in FY 2011. The House defense appropriations bill provides $12.8 billion to train and equip troops and police in Afghanistan — yet the House provides only $2 billion for first responders here at home." CW: No, they have no shame.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: The wingnut blogosphere went nuts because PBS "edited" a transcript of President Obama's jobs speech -- yeah, they dild when the White House sent them an "as-delivered" update. AND PBS "edited" the speech to remove an embarrassing Obama "gaffe" about Abraham Lincoln 's founding of the GOP -- a remark which was not only accurate, it's a fact that Republicans have long embraced. Johnson writes, "The multi-level idiocy of this latest wingnut freakout is impressive. Not only did PBS have a perfectly good reason for changing their transcript, the wingnuts are completely wrong about Lincoln, too."

News Ledes

Al Jazeera: "The Taliban government in Afghanistan offered to present Osama bin Laden for a trial long before the attacks of September 11, 2001, but the US government showed no interest, according to a senior aide to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, Taliban’s last foreign minister, told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview that his government had made several proposals to the United States to present the al-Qaeda leader, considered the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, for trial for his involvement in plots targeting US facilities during the 1990s."

U.K. Telegraph: "A group of Muslim protesters set fire to an American flag outside the US embassy in London during a minute's silence to mark the moment that the first hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Center 10 years ago." With video.

NBC has a nice panoramic image of the September 11 Memorial in New York City.

See the Live Feeds above & the President's Calendar below for the public appearances of President Obama First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden & Dr. Jill Biden today.

The New York Times' September 11 memorials story is here. I expect it will be updated throughout the day. ...

... Here's a New York Times liveblog. ...

... New York Times: "Amid all the dignitaries who gather Sunday on the site of the World Trade Center to pay tribute to those who died there 10 years ago, two will inevitably stand out: President Obama and former President George W. Bush, whose terms in office are bookends for considering how America has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, particularly in its response to terrorism."

... The Washington Post story is here.

AP: "A decade after 9/11, the day that changed so much for so many people, the world's leaders and citizens paused to reflect Sunday. But there were also those — including a former Malaysian prime minister — who reiterated old claims that the U.S. government itself was behind the attacks."

Washington Post: "Two Afghans were killed and nearly 80 NATO soldiers were wounded after a truck packed with explosives hidden under firewood rammed into the entrance of a military base in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said Sunday. The Taliban took responsibility for the attack. In a statement on the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the militant group said Afghans became the biggest victims of response to the attacks."

New York Times: "Cliff Robertson, the ruggedly handsome actor who won an Oscar for 'Charly' but found himself frozen out of jobs for almost four years after he exposed a prominent Hollywood studio boss as a forger and embezzler, died Saturday on Long Island. He was 88 and lived in Water Mill, N.Y."