Interpreting 9/11

Bush opponents think terrorists have done their worst | Hugh Hewitt

The horror of 9/11, to be relived this week in memorials and speeches, remains for most Americans the worst disaster they have ever witnessed, the most unnerving bit of chaos ever to intrude upon their world.

But it could have been much, much worse.

Experts on the Twin Towers watching their collapse guessed at 20, 30, or even 50 thousand dead.

The inability of one terrorist pilot to see the White House probably kept that building from being hit. The delay in take-off of Flight 93 and the heroism of its passengers prevented the Capitol from being destroyed.

The deep partisan division that has split the country in the half-decade since 9/11 may find its origins not just in specific issues such as the Patriot Act but also and perhaps more profoundly in the different understandings people have of the scale of disaster that 9/11 represents.