I really think New York has been through enough:
I remember September 11th, the rescue workers running into the buildings that’s about to collapse, grab somebody in a wheelchair, pick em up – they don’t check their IDs to see whether they’re important or not – they just take them to safety and run back for more. They by their lives speak as Americans of what we think about the value of human beings and how much respect we hold people with and also people who’ve been victimized, how we hurt with them and try to care for them and try to love them. And that’s the very special thing about our country. That’s what we have at risk right now. And that’s what – we have to defend that.
So now New York has to bear the burden of being Todd Akin’s reason to live. Now all the first responders (about whom the GOP could not, in general, give two shits) who half killed themselves pulling people out of piles of burning metal have to take on the additional work of supporting Todd Akin’s worldview. I swear to God, haven’t we asked enough of these people?
I’m not being flip here. I really do think it’s unconscionable, what we generally do to people in tragedies and disasters, making them into our Personal Revelations without, for a moment, asking how those people might feel about it. Their lives are their lives first and foremost, before they are lessons for others, and the minute you turn them into your dashboard saints is the minute the lesson is over.
A.