It occurs to me that the media reaction to today’s tragic plane crash in New York City is a great example of how we’ve changed since 9/11.

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, when the first pictures of the burning North Tower appeared on TV, it would already have been entirely reasonable, if you think about it, to conclude that the tower had been deliberately hit; we were just too naive to see that. But the evidence was there: it was a crystal-clear day, the gash in the building’s side was huge and the fire massive (making the notion that terrorists would attack in such a manner entirely plausible), and the World Trade Center is so much taller than every other building in that area that it simply didn’t make any sense that someone would accidently fly a plane into it. If such an attack happened today, with our post-9/11 mentality, we would all immediately assume terrorism, even before the second plane hit. And yet on 9/11 itself, even after the second plane hit, some TV news anchors were still implausibly clinging to the notion that maybe this was somehow a freak double-accident (although at that point they acknowledged that was unlikely). If you watch the real-time coverage, it seems odd, really. It wasn’t until President Bush called it an “apparent terrorist attack” that the anchors really became comfortable raising the spectre of “terrorism.”

Flash forward to Wednesday afternoon, October 11, 2006. When the first pictures of the fire at Belaire Apartments appeared on TV, it was immediately, instinctively obvious that this was not terrorism. The fire was far too small to make an “attack” scenario seem plausible. Meanwhile, “accident” scenarios, unlike on 9/11, seemed instantly plausible: it was a foggy, dreary day in New York (though I have no idea if that was actually a factor in the crash), the plane that flew into the building was obviously small (increasing the possibility that there was no co-pilot, so maybe a heart attack or something caused it), and the Belaire building wasn’t nearly as disproportionately tall as the WTC had been, so it didn’t seem totally ridiculous that a plane in trouble might accidentally crash into it while trying to avoid other buildings. Point is, there was never any way this was terrorism. No way.

And yet, and yet. The attitude of the media was exactly the opposite of the initial 9/11 coverage. It wasn’t, “This is an accident, right? What else could it be?” Rather, it was, “This isn’t terrorism, is it? Are you sure? Please, tell us it’s not terrorism!” Virtually every question that was asked, every piece of information that was conveyed, was done so in the context of trying to figure out whether this was terrorism. Meaningless non-facts like “the FBI cannot rule anything out, including terrorism” were given major play. (Of course they can’t rule anything out; it happened 20 freakin’ minutes ago. They can’t rule out space aliens, either.) This is all quite understandable, beacuse the first thought on everyone’s mind was, of course, terrorism. That’s the post-9/11 reality. And it’s not just the media: the government dispatched fighter jets, the FBI dispatched terrorism investigators, and the Department of Homeland Security announced they were “closely monitoring the situation” — all because of a crash that was, instinctively, on its face, self-evidently not caused by terrorism.

Mind you, none of this is a criticism. As far as I’m concerned, everyone did exactly what they should have. With regard to the government response, even when there is self-evidently a 99.9% chance that something is not terrorism, it’s still prudent to take precuations until you’re 100% sure. And the media was just giving people the answers to the question we were all naturally asking — questions most of us weren’t asking when we initially saw that first fire at the WTC on 9/11.

I just think it’s an interesting reflection of how much we’ve changed since 5 years and 1 month ago.

Sorry, just had to break up the post-title monotony.

A brief update on my travel plans, so y’all will understand why blogging will be largely or exclusively cell-phone-based tomorrow (aside from any further CNN alerts and anything guestbloggers might post, of course). I’m leaving for my partial fall break trip to Connecticut from Midway Airport at 11:50 AM CDT… which means I’m leaving South Bend for Chicago on the 6:35 AM EDT South Shore Line train. I’m scheduled to land in Providence, RI at 3:05 PM EDT, at which point my parents will pick me up and we’ll head to Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel to watch Great Big Sea at 7:00 PM. Considering what an AWESOME show they put on in Buffalo in April (and previously when I saw them in L.A. and NYC), I can’t wait. And I’m very much looking forward to my parents seeing their first-ever GBS show.

On Friday, I’ll be meeting up with various high-school friends and then going to the NHS football game at 7:00 PM. Lame, I know, but I still have pride in my alma mater… and it’s their conference opener! (They’re 2-1-1 overall so far.) After the game, I’m meeting up with our longtime family friends the Huffmans. On Saturday, I go to the UConn-Army game in East Hartford, again with a bunch of high-school friends, then head to a friend’s bachelor party that evening. Sunday, my parents and I are going to the Connecticut Renaissance Faire.

After that, my schedule will be packed with random get-togethers as I attempt to fill the unforgiving minute meeting up with whatever friends I haven’t seen yet. I head back to the ‘Bend on Wednesday, in time to welcome Andrew and Bea to town on Friday for the UCLA game on Saturday. GOOOOOOOOOO IRISH, BEEEEEEEEEEAT BRUINS!!!! (The extra o’s and e’s are because I’m especially enthusiastic about this particular game. It’s an Irish Trojan’s dream matchup!)

Becky, alas, can’t make it on this trip to the 8-6-0, because she has a job and doesn’t get Fall Break like yours truly. So she and the animals will be holding down the fort here. Our cell-phone bills will be thankful we share a plan so we can talk to each other for free. :)

Anyway, I have no idea how much I’ll be blogging during the next week. Knowing me, it’ll probably be more than you’d think, but the frequency will probably be inconsistent. I’ll certainly liveblog the NHS and UConn games. The bachelor party, maybe not so much. ;) To all my fellow Domers, have a great break!

Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was one of two fatalities when his plane crashed into a high-rise Manhattan apartment building, CNN confirms. Visit CNN for the latest.

Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was the sole person aboard the plane that crashed into a high-rise apartment building in New York, FBI officials say. Visit CNN for the latest.

New York Yankees manager Joe Torre says the plane that crashed into a building in Manhattan is registered to team pitcher Cory Lidle. Visit CNN for the latest.

A small plane has crashed into a building in New York City. No further details immediately available. Visit CNN for the latest.

UPDATE: A “small plane”? Where have I heard that one before?

Watching MSNBC, though, it sounds like it really is a small plane this time… apparently a helicopter. It crashed into a high-rise apartment building on the Upper East Side, the Belaire at 72nd and York (524 E. 72nd St.) and, according to one witness, it looked like the plane was in trouble, coming in at a “very steep angle,” not aiming for the building. It appears that it’s foggy or hazy in NYC.

There was a “pretty large fireball,” a “pretty dramatic crash.” People reportedly trapped on the upper levels, apartments on fire. Chopper reportedly crashed into a fairly high floor, maybe 39th or 40th (or 30th?) (or 20th?).

CNN has much better live footage than MSNBC, they can see an inferno in at least one apartment.

The FAA is now saying it was a small fixed-wing aircraft, not a helicopter. “No indication…that this was in any way related to terrorism,” according to CNN’s FBI source.

Here is a page with lots of information about the building. It’s 512 feet high, and has 50 stories. Construction was completed in 1988. And apparently there’s a hospital inside?? “Apartments are on floors 22-50, and the hospital occupies the lower floors.”

Sotheby’s auction house is right across the street.

Although there is no indication of a link to terrorism, combat air patrols are being dispatched to several cities “as a precaution.”

When not advising Notre Dame on how to attract the black athlete, apparently Paul Hornung is quite the ladies’ man. Or was, anyway, back in his NFL playing days, when he was having sex with future Wisconsin politicians.

…and so badl-ee!

Mcjoan, linking to my post criticizing her post, says Lieberman’s words are being defended by “a few die-hard Lieberman Democrats (an oxymoron if I ever heard one).” This is a clear reference to me personally, since it’s followed immediately by the link to my post… which is odd because I’m not a Democrat anymore, and the reason I left the party is precisely because of oxymorons like mcjoan!

What’s even more odd is that, in the very next paragraph, mcjoan says my criticism of her post is “good, old-fashioned right wing Republican misleading.” Wait, so am I an oxymoronic Democrat or a deceptive Republican? Inquiring minds want to know! (Actually, I’m a “mindless crypto-neocon zionist petro-military-industrial complex apologist” and a “redneck reactionary” … but, shh, don’t tell anyone!)

Of course, in reality, I’m a moderate, sensible centrist, a hawkish yet progressive independent with no allegiance to either party, and what bothers me about mcjoan’s original post isn’t its politics (she’s entitled to her opinions; this is America, and we all have the right to be wrong), but simply that it’s a lie. If she wants to criticize Lieberman for buying the faulty pre-war intelligence on Iraq “hook, line and sinker” — just like, you know, pretty much everyone else in the world, both pro-war and anti-war, did — that’s fine, she can go ahead and criticize him for that (and be quickly and rightly debunked). But to claim that Lieberman “lied” when that’s plainly not the case is just despicable.

It’s telling that, in her original post, she didn’t address any of the nuance she is now seeking to explain away; she thought her readers simply wouldn’t notice the obvious, crucial distinction between “developing” and “having,” so she didn’t mention it at all. Now that the distinction has been pointed out, she seeks to dismiss it as “gibberish,” even though it’s plainly not.

Her argument about the “context” of Lieberman’s words is interesting, but by no means self-evidently correct. That said, if she’d made that argument in the original post, and called Lieberman’s original statement “misleading” instead of a “lie,” it would have been a more respectable post, and I probably never would have blogged about it. What speaks volumes is that she didn’t address the glaring weakness in her own argument until somebody pointed it out (and got linked by a national blog for doing so). She was perfectly content to distort the truth until someone pointed out her distortion. Now she switches from distortion to deflection. Color me decidedly unimpressed.

P.S. This is the first time I’ve been linked on the front page of Daily Kos, and I must say, the link is producing a surprisingly feeble amount of traffic… just 23 hits in the 45 minutes since it appeared. That’s roughly one hit every two minutes. A link from InstaPundit or Michelle Malkin will bring in 10 or 20 times that, sometimes more! I guess the Kos Kidz would rather stay in their comfortable little world, reading their compatriots’ characterizations of the opposition’s arguments rather than bothering to go to the original source.

[CLARIFICATION: The above paragraph gets criticized here. I defend it, sorta, and clarify it, sorta, here.]

UPDATE: Now this is hilarious… and pathetic. In comments on mcjoan’s latest post, “RonK Seattle” writes: “Sorry, this only weakens your case.” He elaborates:

These are all assessments on which reasonable people could disagree, given the environment of incomplete and equivocal intelligence and inference on the subject, and there’s nothing contradictory (or weaselly) about Lieberman’s current description of his 2002/2003 position.

In response to which, a commenter hilariously named “Big Tent Democrat” — oh, the delicious irony! — threatens to “troll rate” RonK Seattle (a method of community feedback which can result in the banishment of an unwanted user from Kos’s site) and says: “Sorry, this only proves you are a Lieberman lackey.”

Nevermind that RonK Seattle’s diary page makes it clear that he’s solidly liberal — just like Lieberman’s voting record makes it clear that he is solidly liberal. He dissents on one issue, so he must be disappeared! Ladies and gentlemen, this is the attitude of Howard Dean’s beloved “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” in a nutshell: If you dare disagree with the party line, you will be smeared, ostracized, banished, and “troll-rated”!

RonK Seattle isn’t alone, by the way. Citizen Earth, under the caveat, “I’m not [a] Joe fan, but…” (a necessary assertion of one’s bona fides to prevent banishment by the “Big Tent” mob), writes:

in fairness, but the quotes you cite are pretty clear: he didn’t agree with Cheney that Sadaam possessed nukes. He did agree that a nuclear program was active and ongoing, which like the biological and chemical claims, turned out to be false. But there is a difference and I don’t feel that’s accurate to dismiss the difference as “parsing”.

A lonely voice of reason in Kosworld! But alas, both RonK and Citizen Earth, and anyone else who might dare agree with them, must deal with inforet’s wrath.

Troll rate all stealth pro-Liarman comments

As far as I am concerned anyone who tries to defend Lieberman IS a republican and a neo-con, whether they can admit it to themselves or not.

Read that again: “anyone who tries to defend Lieberman IS a republican and a neo-con.” In the world of inforet, “Big Tent Democrat” and a bunch of others over in Kosworld, reasonable people CANNOT disagree. All disagreement with the party line will be punished! All dissenters are trolls! You’re either with us or against us! Dissent is treason!

This is what the Left in this country has come to. How they look themselves in the mirror while being such bald-faced hypocrites, I have no idea.

UPDATE 2: InstaPundit accuses me of “customary insouciance.” I must admit, I had to look it up. :)

UPDATE 3: Another voice of reason surfaces… only to be dismissed by “Big Tent Democrat” as yet another Lieberman (er, excuse me… Liarman) “lackey.”

It’s almost as if they don’t know how to make arguments, and can only respond via name-calling!

CORRECTION: In comments, Big Tent Democrat writes:

I did not threaten to troll rate RonK. I point out that RonK has been trollrating me. I never have trollrated anyone. I am not a trusted user at daily kos.

I honestly misunderstood the subject line “Troll rating coming.” My mistake, and my apologies.

That said, Big Tent Democrat’s whole attitude — that anyone who defends Lieberman on the merits is nothing but a “lackey” — is still well worthy of criticsm, and except for the reference to troll-rating, I stand by what I wrote.

CORRECTION #2: Well, now Big Tent Democrat has managed to thoroughly shame me by sounding entirely reasonable in comments:

There is disagreement on Lieberman obviously. But consider where you agree. I assum[e] Ford, Webb, Tester, Casey are candidates we all can support.

I urge kossacks to not think of Ed Kilgore [of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, which traditionally supports centrists like Lieberman] as enemies, but rather colleagues in an intellectual debate.

As I just wrote to him via e-mail:

Just saw your comment about Kilgore, among other things. Needless to say, I whole-heartedly agree.

Perhaps I’ve misjudged you. You and RonK obviously have a history, and it seems your comments to him about being a “Lieberman lackey” aren’t necessarily representative of your views toward Joementum supporters generally.

I guess I should have saved my fire for inforet, whose comment really was an excellent example of the “with us or against us” attitude I was decrying.

According to a new study the war in Iraq has cost the lives of 655,000 Iraqis. Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator, but can we really say we’ve made the life of the average Iraqi better? We’ve failed to make ourselves safer and we’ve failed to improve the situation for the Iraqi people. How then do we continue to defend this choice to go to war?

Go, Connecticut! Infuriate the Blogosphere: Agree with Ned, Re-Elect Joe. :)

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman leads Ned Lamont by 8 percentage points in the Senate race, although a majority of voters agree with Lamont on the war in Iraq and the need for change in Washington, a Courant/University of Connecticut poll says.

Lieberman leads Lamont among likely voters 48-40 percent, with 8 percent undecided and roughly 15 percent of both candidates’ supporters saying they still could change their minds before Nov. 7.

The poll by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis found that 60 percent of voters believe going to war was wrong, and a slim majority favors a deadline for withdrawal, issues Lamont used to defeat Lieberman in the Democratic primary.

But Lieberman, who stayed in the race as a petitioning candidate, enjoys a 57 percent approval rating and has managed to capture 67 percent of the Republican vote, while keeping 35 percent of Democrats in his camp. Unaffiliated voters prefer him over Lamont 45-37 percent.

With the GOP leadership tacitly backing Lieberman, Republican Alan Schlesinger is favored by only 4 percent of voters. Also in the race are Ralph Ferrucci of the Green Party and Timothy Knibbs of the Concerned Citizens party.

“Lieberman has managed to do exactly what he set out to do after his primary loss. His goal was to finesse the party issue by appealing to independents and Republicans without completely alienating Democratic voters,” said Monika L. McDermott, the research director at the center. “He’s pulled it off so far.”

…The poll strongly suggests that the war is not enough for Lamont to win the general election, since Lieberman is supported by nearly one-third of anti-war voters and 70 percent of those who supported the invasion.

“The Iraq war should be Lamont’s area of strength, given its unpopularity in Connecticut, Lieberman’s staunch support of it and its importance relative to other issues,” McDermott said. “The problem for his campaign, however, is that convincing general-election voters to turn on Lieberman because of Iraq is much harder than convincing Democratic primary voters.”

…Richard Foley, the campaign manager for Schlesinger, said his candidate will outperform the polls - all of which show Schlesinger mired in single digits.

“It’s not going to happen that way,” Foley said. “I am not questioning anybody’s methodology or anybody’s sanity, but I will tell you there is almost no situation I envision where Alan Schlesinger gets less than 15 or 20 percent. That is the minimum vote.”

Schlesinger’s profile will rise as the result of three televised debates, beginning Monday; he also is expected to benefit from being on the top line of the ballot next to Gov. M. Jodi Rell, while Lieberman will be no higher than the 5th line…

Actually Joe’s highest ballot position is on the 6th line. He’ll be on the 7th in many towns, the 8th or 9th in some. (All of which Are, I suppose, No Higher than the 5th line, so The Courant is correct. :)

Foley is also correct. / Dick, not Mark. :> Mark’s the Republican ex-Congressman from Florida. He’s very Incorrect. In fact he’s more Radioactive than little Kim Jong the Ill’s little bomb. ;} Dick is the Republican ex-Chairman and ex-Con from Connecticut. He’s right about his boy Alan. / Right, at least, in that Schlesinger will, more or less “automatically”, do better AT the Polls than he’s doing IN the polls. How much better could determine the outcome. IF Foley’s 15-to-20-point “minimum” proves true, Lamont will win.

Connecticut is Odd. (Of course, we Like us that way. :) Not only do 35% of Democrats support Saint Joe, but also ~ 15% of Republicans favor Lord Ned!

Read the whole thing.