5.02.2011

The scene at the White House Gates #DingDongTheWitchIsDead

I was downtown last night at the White House. I was working late at the office 2 blocks away and couldn' t resist just going to see the massing crowds at 1 a.m. So what was it like?
  • Boston World Series Win: 3x or more
  • Yom H'atzmaut on Rabin Square: 10x
  • Most any large soccer win...bigger, depending on the city.
Having said that, this was spontaneous so I give it a lot of credit. The sports analogies are perhaps the most apropos. The participants had 'won' but we weren't in any sort of immediate mortal danger, so it really felt like a big sports victory.

I heard a lot of "USA, we're number one" and then some stupider, baser comments uttered by, well, kids, so take that for what it is worth. Mostly, though, the atmosphere was relieved and chipper rather than hopped up or edgy. Remarkably low stakes if that makes sense.

I didn't jump into the fray. You look at this issue - any issue - long enough and 'winning' doesn't make sense any more. Neither does 'justice' here. There isn't really justice to the dead. We didn't take down Al Qaida, just an aging figurehead. We didn't really win - the State Department had to issue a worldwide travel warning to Americans starting immediately. We did what we set out to do, and we did it by sending an arm of the U.S. military under command of a non-military intelligence agency on foreign soil without an act of Congress. I think the Obama administration has actually earned the credibility to do that. We did what we set out to do; I am just saying it is complicated.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Better people than me can entirely avoid schadenfreude. However, I do think that the execution of a murderer is an example of justice being served.

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