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am in Las Vegas today. It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm leaving
for the Yucca Mountain in a few minutes. I'm having a bit of déjà
vu, lying here in my bed scratching out some words while still groggy;
that's exactly what I was doing six months ago at exactly this time.
I was in a motel in Pendleton, Oregon, at the dawn of my second
full day of driving back home with my dog after my honeymoon.
The symbolism
of the new era couldn't have been more glaring. I was watching Fox
News and at 5:48 A.M. Pacific Time. The Fox and Friends morning-show
crew were interviewing David Kaplan of Newsweek magazine
about his new book on the Florida recount. Kaplan had made a minor
news splash by suggesting that Supreme Court Justice David Souter
needed just one more day to persuade Anthony Kennedy to side with
Gore in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore.
The conversation
was interrupted when E. D. Donahey said they had to break away to
cover a report that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. Kaplan
walked off the set and Bush v. Gore went from being
the story of the century to the prelude to the story of the century.
Anyway, I've got to get going. What follows below is the column
I wrote that morning, in Oregon.
Where
were you when the World Trade Center collapsed?
Well, I'm in
Pendleton, Oregon. Virtually every important person in my life is
in New York City or Washington, D.C. At 9:00 AM or so I called and
left a message for my wife (of three weeks) to call me and turn
on the TV when she got in. She called, and said that the security
guard at the Justice Department had told her what had happened.
As the attorney general's chief speechwriter, she said she had to
run and help with some statement. She called back 20 minutes later,
to say that she was being evacuated.
My parents
and brother are fine. My mom says that the ambulance and police
sirens are constant outside her window. Still, though I pray otherwise,
I wouldn't be surprised if I know someone who was hurt or killed
at the World Trade Center.
Meanwhile,
Pendleton is an eerie place. The dining room in my hotel is packed
with people watching the coverage — vaguely reminiscent of
people huddled around a radio listening to reports of the Pearl
Harbor attack.
There's a big
rodeo in town called the Pendleton Roundup, and the whole place
seemed to be packed to overflowing with visitors last night. RVs
line the streets and fill parking lots. But, this morning, the streets
are largely empty. After about an hour or two of TV coverage, I
went out with my Walkman to walk my dog. I listened to the radio
as Cosmo and I played fetch in a small park next to the rodeo stadium.
The sounds of the cows mooing in their pens almost drowned out the
NPR broadcast coming through my headphones. Across the street, small
groups of tourists and locals huddled together in the temporary
RV park they've made out of the Albertson's supermarket parking
lot.
Suddenly, the
NPR broadcast grew louder, or seemed to. Then I realized that the
Rodeo PA system was blasting the National Public Radio newscast.
In this day of firsts, this may been the first time an American
rodeo amplified NPR's Morning Edition on purpose, which gives
you just a sense of how quickly Americans can rally together when
necessary.
In fact, I
found it oddly touching that QVC, the home-shopping network, is
running the following announcement in lieu of regular programming:
"QVC acknowledges today's events and expresses our heartfelt
concern with this national tragedy. For more information, please
turn to your TV news channel. In light of these events, QVC will
be temporarily suspending its broadcast."
I've chatted
with a few people in Pendleton. One lady in the lobby of my hotel
was desperately trying to call her daughter by cell phone. She was
worried because her daughter is a flight attendant, and all of the
cell-phone lines were blocked. Eventually, she got through. I told
her that my new wife and my parents were in Washington and New York,
respectively. She said she'd pray for my family. I got a little
choked up; I offered to do the same.
Some people
here seem upset, others fascinated. But one emotion seems to unite
all: anger. I know it was my overriding response as I listened to
witnesses describing how a dozen people deliberately leaped to their
deaths from the World Trade Center, in order to escape the blaze.
Rage was preeminent as I watched Palestinians cheer in the streets
in joy, as innocent Americans died in the largest suicide-bomber
attack on innocents and noncombatants in human history. And fury
was all I had for Peter Jennings as he seemed to defend the anti-American
revelers, even as they celebrated this attack.
Of course,
our first priority must be to help those in need, be they victims
or families of victims. But after that, the next priority is equally
obvious: controlled rage and determined, furious anger. The Jenningses
of the world will find a chorus, no doubt — in the respectable
pages of the New York Times and elsewhere — agreeing
that this is "not a time for anger" and that "vengeance
is not the answer." We will be told how complicated the many
factors are which led to this act of war. I've no doubt that the
complexities of the context are great, as they were before Pearl
Harbor. But the answer to this event is simple, as was the answer
to Pearl Harbor. Punishment: swift, severe, and public.
This was an
act of war, and we must force the world to choose sides: Are you
with us, or with those who did this to us? Decide now. There is
no middle ground. There are no other squares on the board. What
was once complicated is now simple.
America is
up to the task. Indeed, as the echoes of partisan shrieking over
the budget and the absurdities of the Social Security lockbox fade
quickly in the face of a real challenge, I'm reminded of the observation
(by Eugene McCarthy, I think), that "America can choke on a
gnat, but it can swallow tigers whole." We've been choking
on gnats for the last few months. It's time to devour some tigers,
and without apology.
That, at least,
is how it seems to me, here in Pendleton.
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