AmSpec: Why did Democrats choose 9/11 as the national day of service?

The story burns hot with outrageously outrageous outrage, but I can’t lie. I’m not feeling it.

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year’s election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it’s not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing.

On the Aug. 11 call, Yearwood and other leaders kept saying repeatedly that they wanted 9/11 to be used for something “positive,” “forward-leaning,” and “productive,” said a source with knowledge of the teleconference.

The plan is to turn a “day of fear” that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.

“They think it needs to be taken back from the right,” said the source. “They’re taking that day and they’re breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day.”…

They view Sept. 11 as a “Republican” day because it focuses the public on supposedly “Republican” issues like patriotism, national security, and terrorism.

The boss is right about how this dovetails with Obama’s own insulting, sophomoric reading of 9/11 as being fundamentally about a dearth of empathy, an understanding so facile that it would be cringed at in a dorm-room circle. (Is there any act of cruelty, in any context, about which the same couldn’t be said?) And to the extent AmSpec’s saying that, for many progressives, the big lesson about the attack going forward will be to smile on your brother, get together and try to love one another right now, well, fair enough. But it ain’t the day of service that’s inculcating that outlook; that’s just kind of … how they are. All this does is give them an outlet for it.

What it sounds like, though, is that AmSpec’s claiming this is some sort of nefarious plot to brainwash the country into forgetting what happened that day — i.e. to “reshape the American psyche.” Er, really? Leftist phone banks about gun control are going to dim the memory of jihadists steering jumbo jets into the World Trade Center? That’s kind of like saying that if the left declared December 7 to be Drum Circle Day henceforth, the memory of Pearl Harbor would fade beneath the din of the sweet, soulful tapping on those bongos. Frankly, if there are any political repercussions from this at all (which I doubt), I’d imagine they’d redound to the advantage of hawks. Passing a crowd of college kids chanting about ethanol when you’re busy thinking about people jumping out of skyscrapers isn’t likely to convince you of the merits of ethanol, but it may convince you that those kids are callous douches who don’t have their priorities in order. What am I missing here?

Blowback