Talk about getting off topic: someone should gently remind the Bush Administration that today is supposed to be about honoring the victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, and not trying to sell anything to the American people, least of all a damned fool war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever. And yet there is every indication at this point that our appointed President is going to make an Iraqi crusade the implicit theme of his address to the nation this evening. I'm glad I'll be teaching tonight, or else I'd probably put a shoe through the television screen.

At least the rest of the world isn't afraid to call us out for turning our pain into a permanent casus belli against anyone who dares defy us. Nelson Mandela had some particularly harsh words for Bush and company, particularly Dick Cheney, whom he labeled a "dinosaur". Then again, I might feel the same away about someone who went on the record to support my incarceration as a political prisoner, as Cheney did when Mr. Mandela was languishing under the brutally-oppressive apartheid South African government.

Make no mistake about it - 9/11 is a still-raw wound in the American psyche, but that's not going to stop our leaders from trying to using it for political purposes. Would that one of those leaders take a stand against such a hijacking, lest a most dangerous precedent be set for this terrible anniversary.