Among the many television specials marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11, one that stood out was this week’s two-hour edition of public television’s Frontline, “America After 9/11.”
It was a well-told chronicle, a sweeping survey of all that has happened in the years since that fatal day, from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the madness of would-be King Trump.
One image that stood out: the night of the tragedy, about 150 members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, stood on the steps of the Capitol, some arm in arm, singing “God Bless America.” Mind, these are the same steps up which rioters climbed to assault and possibly kill the men and women working inside on January 6, 2021.
The sight of those legislators singing on 9/11 was quite something—and one that would be nearly impossible to recreate in today’s era of mean-spirited rhetoric and fevered accusations. The Capitol had been a 9/11 target for the terrorists as surely as the mob that tried to seize control of Congress on January 6. Doubtless, the plane that was brought down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania was aimed at the dome of our national legislature. What a gruesome and terrifying disaster that would have been, further multiplying our panic and revulsion.
— source commondreams.org | Michael Winship | Sep 10, 2021