Let’s be clear about one thing first: Bill Clinton isn’t shallow. He
harnessed the power and responsibility of democratic government to
improve the lives of more Americans than any president in a generation.
A Rhodes scholar with genuine compassion, he righted the wrongs of
active exclusion, willful ignorance, and offensive pity dished out in
three previous terms by two elitist, out-of-touch anti-intellectuals.
And he lead the nation through its longest period of peacetime expansion
of economic, social, and individual opportunity.
[Read Response]

In the rest of his article of March 15, Evan Coyne Maloney makes a good
point, but he stops short. He argues that American committment to
quelling terrorism will remain strong only if we are reminded of its
evils daily. Mr. Maloney even suggests televising Daniel Pearl’s
execution to stir American vitriol and harden our resolve. I agree. We
have short memories these days and even shorter attention spans. As we
as a nation grapple with terrible questions — What happened? Why us?
What now? — we must do so with all the facts at top of mind.

But that’s also why Mr. Maloney’s proposal doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Not only must scenes of horror against Americans be replayed to fuel our
hate, the damage we inflict on others must be shown to temper it. For as
many times as the September 11 footage airs, we must see an equal number
of innocent Afghanis’ homes destroyed by mis-directed American bombs.
For every profile of a American traumatized by September 11, we must
know the despair of a destitute Pakistani, living in squalor, dying
young, with no hope of ever knowing comfort or happiness. If we don’t
insist on this kind of balance, we’re apt to choose the “quick fix” Mr.
Maloney rightly derides.

It won’t be easy. Proudly simple Americans like President Bush prefer
straightforward systems they can understand — systems with one cause
and one effect — but that’s not reality. Today’s interconnected world
is an infinitely more complex system of inputs and outcomes with
overlapping, indistinguishable causes and effects.
[Read Response]
There’s a reason for
what happened on September 11 and there will be an outcome from how we
respond. Those factors must also be considered in formulating our
response.

American political and economic dominance is a testament to our
ingenuity and pluck, but it also carries an enormous responsibility —
one we have recently shirked. We must re-engage in the Middle East and
engage at all in Africa. We must work to alleviate profound poverty at
home and abroad. We must support efforts building civil society and
promoting justice broadly defined. And, yes, we must retaliate for
September 11, but only in self-defense, not as part of a half-baked war
against everything Muslim between Israel and Indonesia.

Mr. Maloney is right that our short-term-memory culture could cause us
to forget the horrors of September 11. But if his solution only incites
rage without fostering understanding, then no memory is better than
half. [Read Response]