The New York Times, September 11, 2017: It’s 9/11 again – and almost nobody is commemorating the anniversary. It didn’t even occur to me to use my print column space for the purpose, given all the ongoing current horrors. But since I have a bit of time before my 14-hour flight, I thought I’d take a few minutes to talk about what was supposed to happen after 9/11, but didn’t.
In the weeks and months after the atrocity, news media had a narrative about what it meant – basically, that it was a Pearl Harbor moment that brought America together with a new seriousness and resolve. This was comforting and reassuring. It was also totally false, literally from the first minutes.