word. olberman at his best here.

I think he should have concluded his comment by calling McCain's claim what it really is: a vain boast. Talking tough now, but after the election have come and gone, nobody will remember it. Osama is, oh, so difficult to find, you know? But by that time he'll have a cushy chair in the Oval Office and nobody in the GOP will care.

Btw, I am not an American but I remember that day and I offer commiserations to all of you on this sad anniversary. If they really used some of the worst footage I saw that day at the RNC, they are truly despicable.

Here's hoping that your election will not be the mother of all trainwrecks (who would have thought it couldn't get worse after Bush jr. eh?).

Nothing could ever top the gaudy and sleazy way the Republicans exploited 9/11 during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.

I wrote this essay back then to satirize how they had turned 9/11 into a "passion play" much like Catholics do on Good Friday by the reenactment of "The Passion of Christ." Or like those feral little kids in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome put on their passion play about the return of Captain Jack.

9/11 isn't just a brand name with Republicans, it has become part of their ideological liturgy, almost like a religious act on their part to dust off its memory and drag it out into public view, as if Republicans alone own that memory and not the entire nation.

I really think the events of 9/11 are not being used to the same level they were in 2004's presidential campaign. On my Word Face-Off blog http://wordfaceoff.blogspot.com/2008/09/911-vs-world-trade-center-or-twin.html, I compared the Google-popularity of "9/11," "Flight 93," etc. and there is a marked difference between 2004 and 2008.