How Should Hillary Act During First Debate?

Advisors are counseling Hillary Clinton to be firm but ladylike during the first presidential debate next Monday with Donald Trump. The public, they say, does not embrace a woman in attack mode.

I, on the other hand, would prefer if she looks to Margaret Thatcher as her debate model, not in policy but in demeanor and comportment. The Iron Lady of British politics confronted head-on those who would challenge her. It is time for Hillary to stand up to the vicious, insulting lies, innuendos, misstatements and falsehoods promulgated by Trump and his cohorts. Do so not in a belligerent way but in a detailed, controlled fashion of righteous indignation not just for herself but for the American people who have been hoodwinked by a carnival barker masquerading as a serious candidate for the presidency.

Hillary needs to show emotion to demonstrate how passionate she is to serve the American public and to defend them against the regressive, repressive policies Trump wants to impose. It is time to take the gloves off, time to expose Trump for the clueless, shiftless character he truly is.

Trump does not react well when confronted. He doesn’t react well to strength and criticism. It makes him fabricate the truth and lash out with insults, the type of behavior that makes him an unstable candidate to be president. 

So here’s a sample of what Clinton should say during the first debate: 

If there’s a question about the Clinton Foundation, she should say … “Mr. Trump has questioned the role of the Clinton Foundation. Here’s the truth. The Clinton Foundation has raised and allocated tens of millions of dollars to fund social welfare programs overseas. My husband and I have donated (put amount here) to the foundation. Meanwhile, since 2008 Donald Trump and his family have given zero dollars to the Trump Foundation. He has made a point of saying he is giving away lots of money but it is other people’s money. Moreover, the Trump Foundation has paid out more than a quarter of a million dollars to settle lawsuits against Trump companies and to buy two portraits of Donald Trump for Donald Trump properties, both actions that are illegal. Perhaps Crooked Donald would be an appropriate nickname.”

If there’s a question on taxes … “Donald Trump wants to overhaul the tax code. During the last eight years my husband and I have paid (put in actual amount here) in federal taxes. X percent of our annual income. During that same time we have no idea how much Donald Trump earned or paid in taxes because he has cowardly refused to release his taxes. Even though he is being audited the IRS has said he is not prevented from releasing his tax forms. We can only assume he has something to hide, such as his low tax rate, or his entanglements with Russian and Chinese investments that would make it impossible for him to objectively deal with these countries. Donald Trump wants to eliminate the estate tax. The estate tax affects only the wealthiest in our country. It’s another example of how Donald Trump wants to change the tax code so that he and his family and his billionaire and multi-millionaire friends and cronies can benefit while working people bear the burden of their greed."

If there’s a question on Iraq … “Donald Trump claims he was against the second Iraq war from the get-go. Not so. Donald Trump  was interviewed on The Howard Stern Show on September 11, 2002. When directly asked by Howard Stern if he was for the invasion of Iraq—before it occurred—Donald Trump said, “Yeah, I guess so.” Yet, the man who has said he would never lie to the American people continues to this day to lie about his support for the war. I regret my vote for the war, but Donald Trump is too cowardly to stand up for his actions.”

If there’s a question about how to defeat ISIS … “Donald Trump has advocated illegal activity by our military. He has specifically said our military should kill the families of terrorists. He has said we should torture suspected terrorists. He has said we should have taken Iraq’s oil. These are all violations of international law and our own code of military conduct.”

If there’s a question on child care … “Mr. Trump last week said he supports child care benefits for employees. Yet he does not provide that benefit to his own employees and had the chutzpah to claim he did so at his hotels when the truth is he provided child care benefits to his wealthy hotel guests but not to his own workers. He would have some credibility if he would be providing child care benefits to those already under his control but he doesn’t. His proposal is nothing more than a campaign come-on. He has no more interest in seeing it put into law than he has shown in his own companies. What’s more, a Republican controlled Congress would never pass such a benefit.”

If there’s a question on the environment … “Donald Trump went to Flint, Michigan, recently to provide comfort to the families affected by the polluted water. That was commendable, but let him explain how residents of Flint and the rest of the country would be safeguarded from similar incidents if he follows through on his plan to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency.”

If there’s a question on immigration … “Donald Trump’s signature theme has been he will build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. And that he is a great negotiator. Yet, when he met with the president of Mexico he was too weak to say during his press conference that the Mexican president told him Mexico would not pay for the wall.”

If there’s a question on improving the economy … “Mr. Trump claims to be a great businessman. Yet his companies have filed for bankruptcy protection six times. He has claimed he never settles suits. Yet he has done so numerous times. His Trump University is under investigation in several states for fraud. In Florida his charitable foundation made a large contribution to the re-election campaign of the state attorney general within days of her decision not to join other state attorneys general in the investigation. Good business decision by Mr. Trump? I think it looks highly suspicious.”

If there’s a question on terrorism … “Mr. Trump is against our Constitution. He questions the very foundation of our legal system that you are innocent until proven guilty and that you are entitled to legal defense. He would deny Ahmad Khan Rahami, the alleged pressure cooker bomber, his legal right to an attorney. And he questions our civility in providing medical treatment to his wounds. Is that the type of society America wants to become? I think not.  I hope not. Mr. Trump wants to have a national stop-and-frisk policy even though a federal court ruled it unconstitutional.”

If there’s a question on gun control … “Donald Trump falsely claims I want to repeal the second amendment. No, I want to limit the proliferation of assault rifles. I want background checks on all gun purchasers. But tell us, Donald. What would be your words of comfort to the next families whose loved ones are gunned down with an AR-15 or similar type weapon? What would you have told the parents of Sandy Hook? Do you really want us to go back to the days of the Wild West when everyone carried around a revolver? Is that your idea of a civilized society? While citizens of the rest of the free world walk around without weapons you would have us turn into an armed camp.

If there’s a question on the federal budget … Mr. Trump claims to be fiscally conservative. Yet he wants to raise the Pentagon budget beyond what our military leaders want. He wants to build a wall. He wants to lower taxes, all actions that independent tax experts say would increase our national debt. But does Mr. Trump care? Apparently not as he says if he were president he would renegotiate our debt. He would single-handedly destroy the financial credibility of the United States. And that would be a legacy all of us, our children and our grandchildren would pay for for generations to come.”

Enough examples. 

The debate is billed as Trump vs. Clinton. But really it is between the values upon which America was built and a re-imagined America that would repress minorities and specific religions, would shun our immigrant heritage, would look to curtail the freedom of the press, the separation of church and state, and the right to vote without harassment,  and would question our national commitment to the good and welfare of all our citizens while rewarding the elite. 

A Dialogue on Freedom and Peace

(Editor’s Note: This is a realllllly long entry as I have chosen to reproduce two blogs from Rabbi Barry Konovitch who I knew as head of the waterfront in Camp Columbia back in the early 1960s. Barry is the rabbi of Temple Anshei Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Delray Beach, FL. For more background on him, click on this link: http://www.templeansheishalom.org/abouttherabbi.html. His blogs are reproduced in italics. My thoughts follow his.)

President Obama’s Legacy

The world is in crisis because the United States has relinquished its traditional leadership position as the most powerful democratic nation on earth. Free people everywhere have always looked to America for inspiration, guidance, and when needed, military intervention to support and protect basic human freedoms and rights. It has been a heavy and sobering responsibility but we have risen to the task each time we were called. We supported our friends unequivocally and unhesitatingly; and we punished the enemies of freedom decisively and unsparingly. For the better part of the 20th century we imposed a Pax Americana that encouraged the spread of democracy and improved the daily lives of all people under our umbrella.

Now our leadership role is being relinquished as we retreat from global challenges instead of facing them head-on. The enemies of democracy are emboldened by our indecisiveness and wavering in the face of serious challenges. The murder of our ambassador in Benghazi and his compatriots produced “what difference does it make” from the Secretary of State. The Russian invasion of the Crimea and Ukraine and the concomitant, threats to the Eastern European NATO countries resulted from the ‘reset of our relationship” with the Russian government. The Iranian program to produce a nuclear warhead with which to threaten the Middle East and the Western world with the avowed promise to “wipe Israel off the face of the map” has produced a sham agreement that will allow the Ayatollahs to move with alacrity toward their nuclear goal. Our red lines threat to attack Syria’s Assad regime if they used gas weapons, evaporated as the gas floated over Aleppo. Our friends are appalled by the American paper tiger and our enemies are emboldened. Islamic terrorists arise in every corner of the globe where we have retreated. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does geopolitics. Everywhere American troops are “drawn down” (a euphemism for ignominious retreat) Islamic terrorists arrive to take their place. They terrorize the local populations into fearful submission and they dare to challenge the might of the American military. When the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists murder men women and children in Nigeria, and they blatantly kidnap several hundred young girls from their villages, we are led in a protest to “bring our girls home” by none other than Mrs. Obama. The protests and the interest from the public lasted no more than a week before it no longer captured our interest, much less our concern, or heaven forfend, any real attempt both politically and militarily to “help our girls”.

To understand what has happened to us, American citizens, we need to be reminded of the presidential agenda clearly set forth for us right at the beginning of the political campaign and underscored, reinforced and elaborated upon in such “democratic” venues as Cairo and Riyadh. We would do well to remember Pres. Obama’s words and, yea his promise to bring the troops home, to disengage ourselves from all wars and conflicts and leave a much smaller American footprint on the world. We will contract into ourselves and concentrate on improving our internal economic and political lives. Conveniently forgotten is the basic lesson of the 21st century; the world is connected, for better or worse, and no nation lives in an isolated vacuum, and no ocean or mountain chain will protect us from our enemies.

“Yes, Virginia,” we have enemies around the world who seek to destroy us, and are just waiting for the chance to take advantage of any perceived American weakness or hesitation. Pres. Obama has projected American weakness and indecisiveness to the world and our enemies are on the move.

No one should be surprised. We elected a president who by virtue of being the first black man to attain our highest office, was immediately granted the Nobel peace prize, for doing absolutely nothing to advance world peace. The award was a sham and an embarrassment to all responsible citizens. This was the president who spent 20 years sitting in a church pew listening to the right Rev. Wright spewing anti-American and anti-Semitic hatred to his parishioners. And the future president sat quietly and without protest and absorbed the lessons of black revolutionary theology. This is the President who apologizes to the Muslim world for the American anti-Islamic transgressions and bows low to despotic Arab potentates. This is a president who promised the president of France that he will “deal” with the Prime Minister of Israel who dares to disagree with his utopian plan for the Middle East. After all, this is the president who was raised in the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, and was sent to school to absorb the lessons of Islam at a young age. A man who accepts the name “Hussein” is clearly trying to tell us something about his mindset.

Our friends around the world feel abandoned and our enemies are emboldened. And we sit quietly waiting for the next 9/11, which is certain to come.

The Ongoing War on Islamic Terrorism

 The latest war against the Hamas terrorists in Gaza has come to an end, but by no means to a satisfactory conclusion. The Negev communities are still susceptible to mortar fire and the major Israeli cities are still within rocket range. The Army has not packed up the Iron Dome and the reserves remain on alert. The ominous quiet is merely a precursor to the next round of attacks and the Israeli public remains uneasy if not downright angry and disgusted. People tread lightly in the streets of Ashdod and Tel Aviv, anticipating the next air raid sirens announcing the start of yet another terrifying round of terrorist attacks. The question is asked in the streets: Why hasn’t the Army finished the job? Why does the government hesitate to give the orders: destroy the Hamas terrorist once and for all? Why should the deaths of the Gaza so-called “civilians” concern us or at least prevent us from doing the job which is protecting Israeli citizens?  The world clearly sees, but as yet refuses to understand, that Hamas terrorists use their neighbors as human shields in the hope that they will be martyred and sacrificed on the altar of public relations. There is absolutely no interest in and condemnation of the tens of thousands of people massacred by Islamic terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Lebanon, Mali, and a host of other countries. Only Israel is singled out for vilification which clearly is the 21st century is manifestation of anti-Semitism.

The civilian population of World War II Germany and Italy and Japan were “enemy populations”, subjected to indiscriminate carpet bombing by the US and British air forces until these enemy governments surrendered unconditionally. There was no hand wringing and mea culpas in the White House or in Whitehall. Clear eyed Western leaders understood that destroying the Nazis and fascists and militarists was the moral thing to do.

The Islamic Jihadists are the 21st century version of the Nazis; they have the same brutal intentions. These barbarians are at the gates of Western civilization, all across Europe and even in our United States. How many warnings do we need before we truly awake and take action? What we have witnessed on 9/11 and at the Boston Marathon is only the beginning of a spreading cancer that will destroy our civilization if we don’t act decisively and unhesitatingly. I fail to understand how known Islamic radicals, or even suspected terrorists are not stopped at our borders, removed from our airplanes and deprived of their visas and passports. How do we tolerate Muslim preachers who exploit their thousands of followers and hundreds of mosques across America, to murder all infidels in the name of Allah?  Infidels, of course, mean all of us; Jews, Christians, Mormons alike and anyone who doesn’t accept Islam.

This is not the time to hide behind political correctness or cultural liberal ideas of personal freedoms. Our first order of business must be self preservation and the preservation of our Western democratic way of life, and if it means giving up some of our personal freedoms to accomplish it, then I for one say so be it.

How refreshing to hear the British Prime Minister layout a detailed and thoughtful program for immediately taking up the challenge of worldwide Islamic terrorism. Would that are own president would follow suit instead of “leading from behind”. The people of Israel are on the front lines of the war against Islamic terrorism. The  names may change across the world but make no mistake about it, they are all the same with the same tactics and the same goals: kill the infidels, destroy western corrupt civilization, impose Islam on the World. Isis, Nusra, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Aqsa Brigade, these are all manifestations of the same barbarians, who wish to erase  thousand of years of Western enlightened civilization and return us to the savage evil caliphate fulfilling the call of the Koran “convert or die by the sword”. How many beheadings do we have to watch, how many exploded bodies do we have to see, how many genocidal massacres do we have to witness before we are galvanized into self-defensive action? The Israeli public continues to feel vulnerable. The Hamas terrorists have not been eradicated; they will resupply, rearm and continue to attack. The Israeli government can surely finish the job, but at what expense? 100 more young soldiers would die in the alleyways of Gaza before every Hamas terrorist would be dead. Israeli parents would be up in arms; it is too costly a proposition. So the terrorists nurse their wounds and make their plans. And Israel waits and prepares for the next round. And so should we, because it is coming to a “theater near you”.

Sorry, Rabbi, I Respectfully Disagree

As head of the waterfront of Camp Columbia, Barry Konovitch saved my life when I, a non swimmer, slipped under the deep water during an ill-fated intermediate swimming course training exercise. But, as a respected rabbi and blogger, Barry Konovitch is misguided in his analysis of America’s place in the world and what should be our response to the increasing rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the terror it has engendered.

Foremost among his missteps is his willingness to give up some of our cherished liberties if it meant more protection from terrorism, as if we would be able to control this downward slope on our freedoms. It is the same compact with the devil Jews, intellectuals and businessmen made with Hitler in the hope he would restore order to Germany and they would be able to control him. Once liberties are ceded to government officials they rarely, if ever, are reinstated. Scapegoats throughout history, Jews should never, ever, be on the side of restrictions.

Yes, we are appalled at the evil that Islam has fostered. But as a country we cannot hope to be the police force to 1.6 billion world-wide adherents to the Koran. We cannot go back in history and become a colonial power.

The world is suffering because of decisions made 100 years ago by the then colonial powers to create countries with borders that made little sense to the indigenous peoples they contained. This divide-and-conquer strategy has come back to bite western civilization. After World War II, America’s corporate and military industrial complex layered on another form of oppression on people who wanted nothing more than we had—a life of freedom to pursue happiness in peace and prosperity. But we supported dictators who strong-armed their subjects while they enriched themselves. 

Militant Islam is found throughout Europe. In France. In Great Britain. In Germany. In Holland. In Denmark. Is America to blame? I think not. 

Barry Konovitch laments the United States no longer is the beacon it once was to the rest of the world, that it “has relinquished its traditional leadership position as the most powerful democratic nation on earth. Free people everywhere have always looked to America for inspiration, guidance, and when needed, military intervention to support and protect basic human freedoms and right.”

Last I checked the United States was still the country most people aspired to enter, both legally and illegally. The U.S. still was the country people called out to for military relief.

Barry is wrong to say we encouraged democracies. Truth is, we repeatedly overthrew or undermined governments when we disapproved of the leaders voted in by their respective electorates. We supported feudal leaders throughout Arabia. Under four Republican presidents we negated the success of the Suez War of 1956 (Eisenhower), abandoned Lebanon after 241 Marines were killed in Beirut (Reagan), illegally sold arms to Iran and illegally supported the Contras in Nicaragua (Reagan), let Assad I gas thousands in Hama (Reagan again), let Saddam Hussein wreak revenge on Shiites after the first Gulf War (Bush I) and started a war in Iraq under false pretenses while ignoring the real enemy in Afghanistan (Bush II). 

Yes, Barack Obama did not deserve the Nobel Peace prize. But it is a canard to accuse him of bowing to Arab despots. Did Barry criticize Bush II for walking hand in hand with the Saudi king, the same king who has supported and funded the extreme Wahhabi form of Islam that is the root for much of the fundamentalism now spreading throughout the Muslim world?

I, too, would have liked Israel to wipe out Hamas. But it would have required a re-occupation of Gaza, with no end in sight for a withdrawal, not to mention the numerous casualties, civilian and military, both sides would have incurred. 

It is most unfortunate that technology has overtaken diplomacy. The means of inflicting destruction and death have outpaced any sincere effort in finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli question. Perhaps, if Israeli leaders had been more imaginative and accommodating (yes, accommodating) in decades past, they would have achieved a solution that would have lifted Palestinians out of the poverty so easily exploited by Islamic jihadists. When your family has few or no jobs, little to eat, no dignity, insufficient housing, sanitation, medical care and education, there is too little to keep youth from committing to the tantalizing dream of the jihadist. 

Palestinian and Arab leaders have repeatedly rejected Israel’s presence. They are more culpable because they rejected offers of peace. And the Arab Street was silent in asking for peace. The latest war in Gaza, however, has demonstrably shown that creativity must be employed to secure a lasting peace because, surely, destructive minds are hard at work creating new means of terror, above and below ground. 

The Real Mass Murderers Among Us

Safe to say, Afro-Americans have suffered more discrimination in our society than any other population segment. Yet, other than Colin Ferguson, the Long Island Railroad shooter who killed six commuters and wounded 19 others in 1993, I’m hard-pressed to recall any other instance over the last several decades when an Afro-American vented his frustrations and executed a mass shooting and murder as perpetrated last week by James Holmes, another white man, in Aurora, Colo., or in Columbine, Colo., or at Virginia Tech, or in Tucson, Ariz., or just last week ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where, thankfully, none of the 17 people shot in a bar died (okay, technically, the Virginia Tech shooter was Asian, but hardly a member of a discriminated race).

Through their gangs, blacks have the unfortunate habit of shooting and often killing their own, both gang members and innocents, often children unlucky to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Those are serial events, not the singular violence shooters like Holmes trigger. You’d think if anyone could be justified in taking it out on society it would be an Afro-American, or maybe an Hispanic-American. Thankfully, they don’t.

I don’t mean to belittle the tragedy in Aurora, but the real tragedy of America is that gang-related murders evoke little more than hand-wringing and not enough resolve to alter the conditions that are killing hope in minority neighborhoods. In Chicago, for example, 272 have been killed this year through June 30, mostly from gang-related incidents. That’s up 36% from a year ago. 

Since the mass assault in the movie theater in Aurora we’ve been trying to analyze the alleged shooter, determine his motive, flesh out his psyche, somehow try to figure out what would drive an individual to do such an extreme act against society. Perhaps it would be more worthwhile to figure out why whole groups of men have abandoned social mores. Let’s figure out how to stop their discriminate and indiscriminate shooting rampages.

We’ll never stop random acts of mass murder, no more than we can eradicate random acts of terrorism. But we must work to stop what has become “institutionalized” murder by gangs, even if it’s against other gang members. We don’t tolerate Mafia wars. We shouldn’t tolerate minority wars. We cannot allow neighborhoods of our cities to degenerate into semblances of drug-cartel controlled Mexico where the value of a life has lost its true meaning. 

Getting back to James Holmes, did anyone else look at his picture and think he resembled the devil incarnate, what with his lips turned up into a smirk, pointy ears, arched eyebrows and two wisps of hair on each side of his head looking for all accounts like horns? Click on this link to see a picture of Holmes. Make up your own mind: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1118502.1342871848!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/james-holmes.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/james-holmes-aurora-shooting-suspect-med-school-dropout-loner-neighbors-article-1.1118501&h=491&w=635&sz=30&tbnid=ISjZJ4mf-HKI4M:&tbnh=92&tbnw=119&prev=/search%3Fq%3Djames%2Bholmes%2Bpictures%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=james+holmes+pictures&usg=__LG6xslFseV5rCVNdS1W0W4GxJ-Q=&docid=C6KP7QA6-EN9NM&sa=X&ei=hKQNUNqnH4m40QGviNDIAw&ved=0CFoQ9QEwAw&dur=547

Darkness No More

Literally and figuratively, Gilda and I went to bed in the dark Sunday night.

Tired from a full day of gardening, Gilda drifted off to sleep around 10:30. I followed shortly thereafter, oblivious to the drama about to unfold in the next hour. When I woke around 3:15 I couldn’t immediately fall back to sleep. As I often do at such moments, I turned on my iTouch to play a game of solitaire and then downloaded the latest news from the NY Times. I started with the sports section. Though not a NY Mets fan, I was immediately drawn to the headline, “Mets Win on Field in 14 Innings, but Big News Was Buzzing in the Crowd.”

The first paragraph firmly jolted me awake. “A long, emotional Sunday night came to a happy conclusion on Monday morning for the Mets, who beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1, in 14 innings in a game that became a backdrop for the nation’s reaction to the news of the death of Osama bin Laden.”

Quickly turning to the main news section, I devoured the articles. After about 15 minutes I couldn’t contain my excitement. When Gilda shifted slightly in bed, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask if she were awake. I said Osama bin Laden had been killed.

For the next hour we read our iTouches, sharing tidbits of information gleaned one article ahead or behind the other. Until Gilda told me, I completely missed, for example, the sentence at the end of the second paragraph of the main news story stating bin Laden’s body was buried at sea. We watched a recording of President Obama’s speech. Written by the president himself, it was said, it was a great, moving speech.

Throughout Monday I was partially paralyzed with interest, as news morsel after news morsel trickled out. I was amused while CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was interviewing former Bush secretary of state Colin Powell. The graphics people inserted a picture of bin Laden’s compound outlined in red. Amused because the outline resembled the borders of the state of Israel.

Bin Laden was taken down Sunday, New York time, the same day Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, was commemorated.

Political leaders of both parties praised President Obama. Republicans included George W. Bush in their praise. Understandable. Perhaps surprisingly, Rush Limbaugh heaped praise on a president he usually excoriates. He hailed Obama for continuing the Bush policies in the Middle East and for keeping Guantanamo open, but mostly for overruling the military’s desire to strike the compound from the air. Obama insisted on special forces on the ground, said Limbaugh.

Donald Trump congratulated Obama and the armed forces. Sarah Palin, however, revealed more of her petty, bitchy character by failing to acknowledge President Obama’s involvement. Hamas showed the world its true colors as a terrorist organization by calling bin Laden a “holy warrior” and labeling his killing an “assassination.”

The proficiency of our strike force reminded me of the Israeli raid on Entebbe in 1976 and the more recent American success rescuing the crew and captain of the freighter seized by Somali pirates.

There will be those who bemoan we didn’t bring bin Laden back alive to face interrogation and trial. I won’t.

There will be those who question if he’s really dead. I won’t.

No matter how many terrorists are captured or killed, the war on terrorism will go on and on and on. It only takes one radical to keep it going. But we should never forget that our liberties are at stake, that terrorists win not by murdering scores, hundreds, even thousands of our citizens, but rather by scaring us into stripping away the freedoms upon which our country was founded.

Almost 10 years ago, while on a business trip to Phoenix, I slept through the morning attacks of September 11, awakening in time to see the second tower collapse. Last night I slept through the initial reports of our victory over the archetype of terror. How strange.