9/11 Stupidity

Thomas Friedman wrote a column today entitled "9/11 is Over" that got me thinking. I noticed that it made a number of the points I had already made in this post -- basically that the Bush Administration has placed too big of a focus on 9/11 and the war on terror. While we should absolutely need to hunt down the terrorists we also need to keep a sense of perspective about the whole enterprise.

Friedman, however, also goes beyond this and tosses in some nonsense about shutting down Guantanamo and providing health care for Cubans -- which he is jumped all over for in this column.

I do like Friedman’s idea for building a free hospital at Guantanamo for poor Cubans … that’s pretty much all of them, I think … only I’d like to see it built next to the prison, not in place of it. The lines of people streaming into that place would be a pretty good joke on Michael Moore and Fidel. Getting past the Cuban army might be a problem for them, though, and the exit would have to be on the dock with boat service to Miami, or you’d never get them out of the place.

The rest of the column, however, is unfortunate and basically refuses to recognize the crux of Friedman's argument -- that we have lost perspective about the war on terror.

Given that some on the right are loathe to admit this point and that some on the left, such as Friedman, are unable to do so without tossing in some nonsense (e.g. Guantanamo) -- does this mean that I represent the sensible middle? Yikes.