Obama Does Not Understand 9/11

From The New Ledger:

Obama Does Not Understand 9/11by Brad Jackson




Barack Obama does not understand you. He does not understand the plight of the average American, especially not the average New Yorker. With Bill Clinton it was, “I feel your pain.” With Barack Obama it’s “What pain?” Clinton at least pretended to care about the average American, in fact he was a master of the discipline. Obama doesn’t even care to explore it, because he has no need for compassion.



The latest example of this – his support for the Ground Zero mosque.



A whopping 68% of Americans oppose the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero, and 53% of New York City voters are against it. The opposition is not just an emotion that breaks along party lines either — fifty-Four percent of Democrats, 82% of Republicans and 70% of independents believe the mosque should not be built so close to the site of the 9/11 attacks.



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Let’s not forget something that has apparently slipped Obama’s mind. On September 11th, 2001 members of Al Qaeda savagely attacked this country, and most severely, the World Trade Center in New York City. Thousands of Americans died that day, many of them heroic firefighters and policemen who rushed into burning, collapsing buildings to save their fellow man. The construction of a mosque so close to the scene of the crime is insensitive, to say the least, and will be a constant reminder to everyone who passes by it, on their way to or from Ground Zero, of the horror of that day. What’s more, it will be a lightning rod for emotion among those who still bear the scars of lost loved ones, a clear magnet for anger, frustration and vandalism.



The argument of Obama and New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been that the mosque’s construction is about freedom of religion. This is not about freedom of religion. This is about respect for the dead.



Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was killed at the World Trade Center, said the president had failed to understand the issue.



“As an Obama supporter, I really feel that he’s lost sight of the germane issue, which is not about freedom of religion,” she said. “It’s about a gross lack of sensitivity to the 9/11 families and to the people who were lost.”



To Sally all Obama can offer is to say that the “9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event,” but he’s missing the broader point.



It’s not because Americans are traumatized that they object to a mosque being built at Ground Zero. It’s that Ground Zero is the site of an attack on the country that was both violent and symbolic. Obama only addresses the violence, but not the symbolism. The Twin Towers were the target because they were a symbol of America’s sinfulness in the minds of al Qaeda.



In another one of Professor Obama’s “teachable moments,” he does not understand that in fact he is not the teacher, but the student. It’s a sad day when the American public has to teach our President, the Commander-in-Chief, what the symbolism of the most awful attack on this country really means to its people.