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A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

Of course 9-11 is important. But to George W. Bush, it seems that it is only important because it was a defining moment in the history of....

George W. Bush.

Let's face it. He failed to keep us safe and a terrible thing happened on his watch. 3000 people are dead. And although his first instinct was to run and hide, eventually a man who was in his 50s had to face his own terror, face his own fear, and do something most of the rest of us had to do when we were about 18 -- grow up and face the music.

George W. Bush cannot seem to get over his personal moment, and frankly, it would be a hard moment for anyone to get over. Yet in spite of this supposedly "transformative" experience he seems to have retained the ego of a two year old. He believes that his personal bildungsroman must be ours as well.

His moment of truth must be everyone's.

L'etat, c'est moi.

But the fact of the matter is, like all who mourn, Americans want and need to move beyond 9-11, to move forward. To get on with our lives -- to wake up and to know that in spite of the tragedy that happened almost three years ago, spring will come and flowers will bloom, that we survivors will all have moments of happiness and sorrow in our lives, that we will find love, hope, despair, that we will with some luck grow old. In short, we are survivors and we must rebuild and move forward. We do not want to dwell on tragedy, cover our hopes with plastic and duct tape, cover our joy in life with orange alerts.

Americans do not want to see themselves as victims. And Americans, we hope, will not want to hire a president who sees himself as a victim -- a victim of an economy, of terrorist attacks and of wars -- frankly, a victim of everything Bill Clinton and most other presidents have also had to face and, unlike Bush, have managed to triumph over, keeping us safe and keeping us strong and secure as they did so.

Americans want a president who will get on with his job without getting into our faces with his personal angst, with his attempts to deny and obfuscate his personal failure in the face of massive tragedy. We don't want someone who will whine and blame everyone and everything else for what he hasn't accomplished. We just want someone who will do the job and shut up.

Unfortunately for Bush, we now know that a crucial aspect of healing from 9-11 is not only our ability to mourn our dead but also to celebrate and hope for our future.

George, we're glad you think you've grown up. We've patted you on the back for this for three years. But now it's time to move on.

Sincerely,

A Buzzflash Reader

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION