Missed milestones

Due to my usual combination of forgetfulness and sloth, I failed to note the passing last week of three important milestones.

1. Negligent Irresponsibility Day

Seven years ago on August 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a presidential daily briefing entitled, “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.” The memorandum noted that al-Qaida intended “to follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Youssef and ‘bring the lightning to America.'” The memo also noted “some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that … bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft …”

George W. Bush read that memo and … did nothing. He went on vacation. Either he didn’t take it seriously, or he didn’t understand what he was being told, or he just didn’t care, but for whatever reason, he didn’t respond. At all.

It is impossible to know whether any response might have effectively prevented or disrupted the attacks that occurred the following month. Maybe it could have, or maybe a responsible, urgent response to this warning wouldn’t have mattered. We’ll never know. All we can know is that what President Bush did — nothing — didn’t work. He didn’t even try.

That should be George W. Bush’s epitaph. It should be carved on his tombstone and engraved above his official portrait: He didn’t even try.

2. Hiroshima Day

For the first several years of this blog, I commemorated Hiroshima Day, the anniversary of the first, and only, two times, that nuclear weapons have been dropped on civilian populations. This became something of an annual ritual in which I would suggest that the incineration of tens of thousands of non-combatants was not a Good Thing, and that You’re Not Allowed To Kill Civilians, and that this monstrous event and our dubious efforts to justify it is responsible for the Genghis Khan Rules that now govern air war, the routine bombing of population centers, etc.

That post would prompt a flood of e-mails and comments arguing that it was perfectly acceptable to incinerate tens of thousands of civilians in that situation because foreign non-combatants are worth less than native combatants, or because two war crimes make a right, or because the suggestion that deliberately targeting and killing civilians is forbidden would lead to all kinds of unacceptable conclusions, such as that perhaps it isn’t honorable, moral, legal, tolerable, wise or productive for the United States to be dropping bombs on Sadr City, a slum that’s home to millions of brown people that we are, even now, right now, claiming to be liberating by bombing their homes.

This annual standoff was exhausting and never seemed to get anywhere, so I let the occasion pass this year.

3. Louis Armstrong’s Birthday

Armstrong himself usually claimed to have been born on July 4, 1900, but the official consensus these days seems to be that he was actually born August 4, 1901. Either way, it’s an occasion to be celebrated and it affords me an excuse to refer again to one of my favorite long-shot causes: I’d like to see Louis Armstrong on the $20 bill.

The 20 currently honors Andrew Jackson who, in my opinion, doesn’t deserve the honor. We could replace him with another dead president, but that would likely create controversy. Which president? I’d vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who saved the nation twice over, but others would be upset by that since he also created Social Security, thereby vastly reducing poverty among the elderly (this is viewed by many of our fellow citizens as an unforgivable evil). Others would want to see Ronald Reagan on the 20 as a way of honoring the Second Least Embarrassing Republican President of the 20th century. Arguments would ensue.

So to avoid such arguments, let’s break away from the fixation on dead presidents and founding fathers and use our currency to celebrate other great Americans. Let’s put Louis Armstrong on the $20 bill.

Lest anyone think this idea is partisan or liberal or some such, I should point out where I first encountered this idea: in a column written many years ago by conservative pundit George Will.