Remembering all of 9/11

LEAVE IT TO commentators (including moi) to find something, anything, to complain about. It's what they do. Marc Fisher, a senior editor at The Washington Post, has a beaut: 9/11 is all about New York. And that's unfair, he complains.

It's a gutsy piece. I didn't think anyone would go there. But go there he did in a long, three-page soliloquy. He complains that all of the media (and public) focus is on the Twin Towers. The attack on the Pentagon ― the root of his lament ― has been nearly forgotten. "[A] Life magazine book commemorating that tragic day, the story of the attack on the Pentagon merits five out of 208 pages," he writes. In “Project Rebirth,” a new documentary film telling the stories of Sept. 11 survivors, Fisher notes that "every one of the people profiled experienced the attacks in New York." He argues that between Manhattan being the world's media capital and its endless promotion by the likes of “America’s mayor" Rudy Giuliani after the attacks, "New York’s brassy, bold personality has colored the history of 9/11."

Fisher is right of course. He's not wrong when he notes that during next week's 10th-anniversary observances, chances are excellent indeed that visitors to the Pentagon Memorial will have it all to themselves. And though Fisher doesn't mention it, the scene at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania will be much the same. In a perfect world, all three memorials should be given equal attention. But I'm afraid Mr. Fisher is paddling upstream on this one (as even he concedes). The Twin Towers came to symbolize 9/11 powerfully, and history cannot be undone. That does not strike me as inappropriate as long as we also pay tribute to the other victims and heroes who died on that tragic day.