The comedian Lewis Black has a joke which I'll probably get wrong here but it's a good joke. It'll survive my mistelling. It has to do with a half-time show at a football game that he found himself watching — one of those relentless celebrations of patriotism and flag-waving and America's fruited plains. "After two or three hours of this," he says, "I was actually sick of freedom."
I'm afraid I'm starting to feel something similar regarding tributes to the fallen heroes of 9/11 and resurrections of national grief. I feel as bad about what happened that day as anyone. I also have the greatest respect for firemen and other emergency workers and, unlike many who sing their praises, I think the least we can do is to pay these people better. But all the remembrances and memorials and slow-motion montages are starting to ring very phony to me, especially when accompanied by someone making a profit or wrapping themselves in the tattered flag. Even some of the well-intentioned ones are already starting to feel like overkill and we have almost a week of this to go.
What I think I'd like to see is someone — anyone, but preferably a person of some prominence — get up and say, "Hey, things haven't changed as much as we thought they would. We're a much more resilient people than even we knew." I'd also like to see more folks complain that, for all the outpouring of woe and a national consensus to do whatever was necessary to prevent another 9/11, we are still slow and stingy bastards when it comes to spending a little more money on airport security or firefighters' salaries. Most of all, I think I'd like to see the nation experience a mass revulsion at those who have tried to exploit the tragedy to sell cheap merchandise or cheaper political causes.
I'm not holding my breath…