SEPTEMBER 10, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A15
Comforter in Chief ?
Not really
PUBLIC SQUARE welcomes all points of view. Published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Keizertimes
America is still strong
Does anyone not remember where they
were on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 when terror-
ists crashed into New York City, Arlington,
Virg., and Shanksville, Penn.?
One is shocked anew when revisiting
video of planes smashing into the towers of
the World Trade Center and then those two
buildings crumbling down onto the streets
of lower Manhattan. Then, Americans were
collectively angry and scared. Then, we
were all brothers and sisters, sharing in
common grief. At once, strangers were like
family; families became closer.
Of the many changes wrought by the
terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, many felt that
America had internally changed for the
better—we were our brother's keeper. No
one was a stranger. We were one. We were
America Strong.
The country has once again been
knocked akilter with the COVID-19 pan-
demic. Our brotherly bonds post-Sept. 11,
2001 frayed as masks and vaccines became
a dividing line, politics trumping science.
The country became politically and cul-
turally divided long before COVID, but
the pandemic makes that division more
personal.
Regardless of red statesor blue states,
mask mandates or not, we are Americans
and have much more in common. Everyone
puts their pants on one leg at a time; we all
love our children and families. We are loyal
to our friends. Every person wants to feel
safe and secure. Those are the similarities
we should embrace and celebrate.
The horrors of 9-11 will live in our
national pysche for decades. What should
Editorial
also be remembered, fostered and pre-
served is the unity that tragedy brought to
every corner of the country on that day.
A national leader once said that enemies
foreign or domestic could never defeat the
United States; we could only do that our-
selves. America is not defeated; it has been
knocked down, but the victor is the one who
gets back up to fight another day.
Americans are not ready to fold, not by a
long shot.
— LAZ
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By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Before he became president, stories
about now-President Joe Biden phon-
ing friends and even strangers to offer
comfort after deaths in their family were
legend.
Having endured the awful deaths of
a wife and baby daughter in 1972 and
elder son Beau in 2015, Biden was, in
news-speak, “shaped by grief.” Politico’s
Michael Kruse called grief Biden’s
“superpower.”
The quick-with-a-hug Biden entered
office as a seeming natural “comforter in
chief.”
Something has changed. Biden’s halo
of compassion lost some sheen Sunday,
Sept. 3, at Dover Air Force Base when he
talked privately to the families of 13 fallen
service members who died in Kabul.
During the “dignified transfer” cer-
emony, Biden was caught on camera
repeatedly checking his watch.
Later, after Biden approached griev-
ing family members to offer his condo-
lences, many said that his remarks lacked
authenticity.
“I was able to stand about 15 seconds
of his fake, scripted apology and I had to
walk away,” Cheyenne McCollum, whose
brother Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum
died in the terrorist attack, told Fox and
Friends.
Asked about some families’ disap-
pointment with Biden’s attempt to con-
sole them, White House Press Secretary
Jen Psaki declined to expound on what
was said. She did offer that Biden is
grateful for the families’ sacrifice and “he
knows firsthand what it’s like to lose a
child.”
Psaki’s response was as tone-deaf as
Biden’s remarks to mourning families, as
both the president and his spokesperson
made these 13 deaths about Biden and
his grief.
Make a citizen,
make a voter
To the Editor:
I feel that the people of the United
States have gotten away from the idea
our founders considered what it meant
to be a citizen. Have you ever wondered
about the naturalization test that the
immigrants had to pass to become a
citizen?
The leaders of the House of
Representatives are more concerned
about the number of people who vote.
They are against the people who vote
showing their identification. However,
the law is that a person must be of voting
age and must be a citizen to vote. So they
must show an identification to prove that
information. In Oregon when you regis-
ter to vote you must sign the application
form. Therefore the signature is then ver-
ified when you send in your ballot.
I have wondered how many people
vote in more than one state. How many
people that vote aren’t citizens without
showing an ID. Shouldn’t there be some
kind of identification to prove they are
eligible to vote?
The members of the U.S. Congress
and Senate need to get their act together
other
VOICES
“When he just kept talking about his
son so much it was just—my interest
was lost in that. I was more focused on
my own son than what happened with
him and his son,” Mark Schmitz, whose
20-year-old son Jared was killed in the
explosion, told The Washington Post.
“I’m not trying to insult the president,
but it just didn’t seem that appropriate to
spend that much time on his own son.”
“I think it was all him trying to say he
understands grief,” Schmitz added. “But
when you’re the one responsible for ulti-
mately the way things went down, you
kind of feel like that person should own
it a little bit more. Our son is now gone.
Because of a direct decision or game plan
—or lack thereof—that he put in place.”
Biden frequently mentions his son
Beau, who was awarded a Bronze Star for
his service in Iraq, as a way to show kin-
ship with U.S. troops and their families.
Better to talk about Beau Biden’s military
service than the president’s five student
draft deferments.
Now he is the commander in chief,
and he’s found himself in the position of
former President George W. Bush.
This time, mourning parents aren’t
blaming a president for sending their
children to war to die. They’re angry
that he ordered a botched withdrawal in
which their children were killed—and he
thought it was about his grief.
He doesn’t know what to say to them,
and I don’t know what to say about him,
other than: He doesn’t seem to be in
command.
(Creators Syndicate)
Letters
and help the people that came to the
United States as children become citi-
zens. Several people I know were brought
to the United States when they were chil-
dren. Their parents got their citizenship
but the children didn’t get their's. These
people are now adults and work and pay
taxes in the United States, but it has cost
them thousands of dollars in lawyer fees
trying to become citizens. Yet they can’t
cross the hurdle to become citizens.
Maybe it is time for us to get new
representatives and senators since they
can’t seem to do the job and help those
people.
So as we celebrate Constitution Week
let's all call or write our congressman and
tell them to get their job done and make
it possible for these people to become
citizens. There also should be a law that
all people who vote must show an ID to
vote or have their signature verified.
Ruby Pantalone
Keizer