Krugman’s 181-word screed against common sense and decency was nothing more than a loose collection of liberal half-thoughts dumped onto a word processor and uploaded for public consumption.

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In case you missed it, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman used the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to say that the memory of that tragic day has been forever “poisoned,” becoming “an occasion of shame” because Americans allowed themselves to be lied into a bad war and polarized politics. 

In reality, Krugman’s blog post marked his final descent into the leftwing nuthouse. 

Krugman’s 181-word screed against common sense and decency was nothing more than a loose collection of liberal half-thoughts dumped onto a word processor and uploaded for public consumption. 

Ordinarily, this kind of ill-informed rage could be dismissed as the inconsequential ramblings of yet another public intellectual speaking far beyond his area of (alleged) expertise. 

But not on Sunday.  The tenth anniversary of 9/11 should have been a day of rest from the incessant complaining of the kind Krugman has made a mint on.  Those who lost friends and family should have been accorded the decency to solemnly read their loved one’s names aloud, and share in the compassion of a grieving nation.  Yet on this day, all Krugman could muster was a series of verbal aneurisms vilifying every aspect of 9/11 through Krugman’s distorted political lens. 

In Krugman’s view, George W. Bush’s iconic bullhorn speech at Ground Zero and Rudy Giuliani’s steely leadership were instead façades to “cash in on the horror.”  In the very next sentence Krugman says that the 9/11 attacks were used to “justify an unrelated war,” but fails to relate whether he’s talking about the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. 

The implication, of course, is that the worst terrorist attack in American history became nothing more than a smokescreen to fight a preordered war for Saddam Hussein’s oil. 

This is liberalism’s history of 9/11.  Throw in the causation argument that the United States invited this attack because of our commitments to defend freedom across the globe, and you’ve got the leftist rationale for explaining away the murder of 3,000 American civilians. 

The truth about 9/11, as Krugman knows but is loath to admit, is infinitely more a story about American strength than it is about weakness.  Without question, the events of that day and immediately thereafter were not shameful; they were responses to a national wake-up call. 

As investigators began to uncover the missed opportunities to stop the hijackers, neglected policy issues were thrust back into the national spotlight. 

Border security and the integrity of the student visa process became issues of national concern as news that several hijackers used lax supervision to slip into the country for flight training.  Even today, a key element of the border fence argument insists on repelling our enemies at the gates by verifying the intent and history of those who want to enter. 

Thereafter, an FBI memo from the Phoenix office surfaced showing credible evidence that Osama bin Laden was sending Al Qaeda members to the U.S. as flight school students.  Tragically, the memo was lost in the bureaucratic disarray that characterized pre-9/11 intelligence gathering.  Americans demanded – and got – more accountability and coordination from the turf warriors charged with preventing attacks. 

On 9/11, millions of Americans lost their innocence, but not their integrity.  Ten years later, Paul Krugman finally abandoned his.