Robb: Memorial fails to honor dead, 9/11′s moment of national clarity
by Robert Robb on Oct. 03, 2006, under OpinionFrom the political notebook:
● Given all the hubbub about the state’s 9/11 Memorial, I visited it last week.
The charge that it reflects “blame America first” sentiment is over the top. Nevertheless, the memorial is inappropriate to the subject.
The clear intent of the memorial is to engender ambiguous feelings. The title of the memorial is “Moving Memories.” It is introduced with the narrative:
“Memory is the sun that lights the material of history.
“The sun moves.”
The clear message is that our initial memories of and reactions to the 9/11 attacks aren’t the most valid and shouldn’t be the most lasting. Our memories of that event need to be refracted through the perspective of time and context.
Thus the phrases that have invoked the criticism:
“Middle East violence motivates attacks in U.S.”
“Fear of foreigners.”
“Erroneous U.S. airstrike kills 46 Uruzgen civilians.”
“You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles.”
Sometimes, ambiguity is an emotion appropriately engendered by a memorial.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is an example of movingly honoring the dead in a way that captures the ambiguity of the American people about the war itself.
There are ambiguous and conflicted feelings about the conduct of the war on terror since 9/11, particularly the Iraq war.
However, 9/11 was a moment of great national clarity: There were evil people in the world with the desire and capability to commit an atrocious act of mass murder here at home.
Our 9/11 Memorial should honor the memory of the dead in the spirit of that moment of great national clarity. This memorial fails to do that.
● Contrary to the protests of Gov. Janet Napolitano’s campaign, the memorial is certainly fair game in the governor’s race.
It would be a stretch to blame Napolitano for the memorial. She appointed only half the members of the commission that developed it.
Napolitano, however, has highly praised the end product, not recognizing why it was inappropriate and even offensive.
That’s revealing of something not widely understood about Napolitano: On cultural issues, she’s very much a lefty.
The public got a peek of this side of Napolitano when she strong-armed through the renaming of Squaw Peak to Piestwa Peak, shredding established procedures and precedents to get it done. It is also evident in her record of vetoing even the most modest, and broadly popular, social conservative reforms.
And now, there is a policy difference. Republican challenger Len Munsil says that, if elected, he’ll try to get the memorial torn down. By her silence, Napolitano presumably would let it be.
As an issue, that doesn’t rank with taxes, spending and education. But it’s not inconsequential or inappropriate, either.
● There’s some funny business going on regarding campaign financing in Democratic Party circles.
Last week, the party confessed to funding a faux conservative independent expenditure campaign directed against Munsil. That dirty tricks squad has a clear set of interrelationships with the Project for Arizona’s Future, a thinly disguised Napolitano support group that isn’t revealing its finances.
This isn’t to pick exclusively on the Democrats, although their shenanigans are pretty egregious. There are some mystery anti-Napolitano activities going on as well.
Overall, Arizona laws governing campaign finance disclosure are inadequate and inadequately enforced.
There’s no reason not to require real-time reporting of all election-related contributions and expenditures. That would eliminate the game-playing with reporting deadlines.
Right now, enforcement is scattered among the Clean Elections Commission, the secretary of state and the attorney general. Investigations are slow and things fall through the cracks.
During the height of campaign season, when the mischief proliferates, there should be a dedicated group of investigators with subpoena power to quickly ferret out who is funding what. Penalties for violations might need to be increased as well.
I’m in favor of robust speech during campaigns. Voters, however, should have a right to know who’s haranguing them.
Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.
