SIVACRACY.NET

Check out Todd Gitlin giving it to Karl Rove:

Rove's indecency knows no limits. He parachuted into Manhattan to declare: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

They lie and lie. The lies carry them into the disaster that is Iraq. They insult, they sneer, and then they lie again. This isn't an accident--it's an identity.

I think Karl Rove should spend more time in New York. He should talk to my neighbors, check out how these liberals reacted to 3,000 of their friends dying at the hands of Osama Bin Laden.

He should see how New Yorkers still treat fire fighters and police officers with solemn respect unmatched in this city's history. He should listen to the passion New Yorkers muster when they talk about how we might rebuild downtown Manhattan.

If he hung out here a while longer, I would challenge Rove to find one advocate of "therapy and understanding" among my neighbors. I bet he would find a whole lot of families with sons and daughters serving in our military overseas, something that was apparently beneath him and his boss (not to mention his boss's unemployed daughters).

And I would hope Rove would have the courage to stand there as my neighbors take him to task for letting Bin Laden escape unscathed. Rove should have to explain to the families that lost loved ones that the killer gets to go free so we can launch into an illegal folly that had nothing to do with the attack we suffered.

Karl Rove should hang out long enough to ask my neighbors how they reacted to the attacks of 9/11/2001. He would find that our blood flowed red. Our hearts sunk, yet stayed open and loving. Our eyes teared. We pulled together and pulled twisted metal off our neighbors. We prayed and raged and stood strong in our most troubling hour.

All we asked for was our country's support. All we got was a president who lied about everything, including the dangers we all shared from breathing in the charred dust and smoke of the smoldering wreckage of Ground Zero. He promised us justice. Instead we got shame.

New York still stands tall, liberals and conservatives together. We still talk about those days when we weren't sure everyone we loved had lived through it, when we weren't sure if there would be more coming soon. All we could be sure of is that we were going to perservere and triumph, that we would stand united and strong. Today, despite Karl Rove's best efforts, we still stand united and strong.

And we still wonder when we will see justice.

Karl Rove should hang out here long enough to see that.

But, as Rick told Major Strasser in Casablanca, "there are some parts of New York where I wouldn't suggest you go."