Last Friday

I turned on MSNBC this morning at nine o'clock, and there it was again. I was instantly transported back in time to September 11, 2001. MSNBC was reliving the horrors of that day by playing, in its entirety, the tapes from that morning. I did not turn on the television with the intent of watching one of the most terrifying days in our lives replayed. In fact I had not yet even thought about what day it was. I sat there transfixed as the second jet slammed into the building, and listened as a man talking to the Today Show via cell phone, broke down into tears. In my gut and psyche it was 2001 again, and it brought back all the feelings of that day as if time had stood still. After a few minutes of this, I turned the television off.

Why does MSNBC want to keep reliving that horrible day? They have done this every 9/11 starting in 2002, and I have watched it enough times to know that it brings back those horrible feelings. I never saw my parents relive December 7, 1941, and although we honored John F. Kennedy every November 22, after his assassination, I don't remember seeing anything like what MSNBC does every year. Maybe it's because we punished the Japanese so severely in 1945, and the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was dispatched by Jack Ruby thus paying for his crime, that we were able to let those things pass on into history. Unlike those episodes of our lives, the World Trade Center attacks have never been satisfactorily avenged. We attacked Afghanistan, yet the perpetrator of 9/11 escaped and still thumbs his nose at us. Then we invaded Iraq out of some invented connection to the 9/11 attacks, and that didn't give us any feeling of closure. It seems that until we can get our pound of flesh from the real villains, we just can't seem to let it go.

MSNBC needs to get over it, unless they are just doing it for ratings. I know I turned it off and won't go back until I'm sure it is done with. We all need to stop this obsession with terrorists and the 9/11 tragedy. Yes there are terrorists who hate us and we need to keep them from our doors, but if we keep playing their greatest hits every year, it only puts a big smile on Osama Bin Laden's face.