First of all, let me get one thing out of the way : I want to kill Osama bin Laden.

Every time I see him on TV or think back to the image of people jumping to their deaths out of the smoke-clogged World Trade Center towers, I wish bin Laden and his terrorist buddies were sitting in front of me so I could tear their throats out and make them feel as much pain as the thousands of innocent people whose blood is on their hands. As far as I’m concerned, hell isn’t hot enough to punish them as much as they deserve.

I don’t usually write these kinds of sadistic fantasies, because I find them unsavory and pointless. I’m of the mind that blogs should serve to exorcise demons, not indulge them. Nevertheless, the three years that have passed since the attacks haven’t made my anger toward those who attacked us go away.

Now, forgive me for buying into all the post-9/11 unity, but don’t we already agree on this stuff? Do we really need to repeat our disapproval of terrorist tactics every time there’s a new terrorist attack? From the way the conservative elite tries to paint it, the answers to these questions are “no” and “yes”.

On 9/11, we all mourned. It wasn’t just Republicans who cried when the towers fell or just Democrats who celebrated the heroism of the passengers who fought back in that plane over Pennsylvania. For at least a couple days, we were all on the same team. But the last three years have seen that goodwill demolished.

In his post today commemorating 9/11, Glenn Reynolds echoes Andrew Sullivan’s sentiments about “paralyzing, pseudo-clever, morally nihilist fifth column”. Well, on behalf of everyone in the fifth column, Andrew, Glenn, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and all their ideological allies can go fuck themselves.

For the last three years we’ve been accused of “blaming America first”, had our patriotism questioned, and been shouted down for asking the most basic of questions about what happened and why. It’s not un-American to speculate about the motives of those who want to kill us or question the tactics that are being used against them. All rational people agree that we didn’t deserve to be hit and that the people responsible should be punished, but until the loony right is willing concede even this minor point, we’ll never have a rational dialogue about the war on terrorism.

So please, please, please spare us all the self-righteous blather like “Unlike some, I haven’t forgotten what happened on that day”. I guarantee you everyone will remember where they were and how they felt on the morning of September 11th. Your enthusiasm for sharing the intimate details of your grief (or my reluctance to share my own) doesn’t make your emotions about what happened or opinions about what should happen next more sincere than anyone else’s.

Likewise, acting as if every attack on the President is an example of the left blaming Bush for 9/11 pretty much ensures that the right will never be in a situation in which they have to defend their ideas. Both the left and the right have very strong views about what should be done, but only one side that devoted their convention to attacking the patriotism of the other. I’m not saying that the Republicans are necessarily wrong about everything, but when we can’t even have an honest debate about the issues, how do they know we’re not right?