The triple checker jump

The WP coverage of the "Freedom" Walk is hilarious.

On the Freedom Walk, Many Bridges to Cross

"We're here because something horrific happened" -- 9/11 -- "and now we have family and friends who are over there and supporting our country and fighting for us to be free," Brown said.

That's the triple checker jump: From Sept. 11, by way of Iraq, to Freedom.

[...]

Sometimes people caution against linking everything to everything, but such advice often goes unheeded. Not discussed much yesterday were President Bush's acknowledgments that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Sept. 11.

Understatement of the year.

And never mind that Pentagon spokesmen have insisted that the Freedom Walk was not a pro-war stroll. It was about the troops, said the spokesmen, not the war.

Most of the walkers strayed way off those messages. They made the connections. Survivors of the Pentagon attack walked with relatives of soldiers in Iraq. Legless veterans of Iraq sat in the front
row at the post-walk Clint Black concert, beside family members of those who died in the Pentagon or aboard American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11.

The walkers echoed Bush on other occasions when he linked Sept. 11 to Iraq in a greater drama of a war on terror.

[...]

"I've always believed the people who died on September 11 were the first casualties of this war," Ronald Griffin -- whose son Kyle died in a truck accident between Mosul and Tikrit two years ago -- said Friday as he was preparing to drive down from New Jersey for the walk. "The war in Iraq, the war on terror, the war in Afghanistan. The war is not just in Iraq. The war is everywhere."

I would have a hard time accepting the 9/11-Iraq link was bullshit too if my son had died for it.

The walkers also said their support for the troops was inextricably linked to support for the war.

"What I've never really understood is how someone could say they support the troops but they don't support the war. . . . Because the troops want to win the war," said Debra Burlingame, who walked in memory of her brother Charles F. Burlingame III -- pilot of the hijacked plane that struck the Pentagon -- and to say thank you to the troops wherever they serve.

What does winning even mean? How do we win? I'd love to see an open-ended survey of the troops to see what they think "winning the war" means, and if they give a shit or if they'd rather just declare victory and get the fuck out.

Here's another piece:

At 9/11 Walks, Remembrances Stream Forth
Thousands in D.C. and Va. Honor Victims, U.S. Troops

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld joined the walk and was treated like a rock star, hounded by passersby who begged his Secret Service detail to snap their photos with him.

"I wish I remembered my permanent marker so he could sign my T-shirt," one woman lamented after shaking Rumsfeld's hand. Patricia Rivera, 26, an Air Force enlistee, gasped and said: "Oh, my. What an honor! What an honor!" after having her photo taken with Rumsfeld.

[...]

One protester, Rik Silverman, 27, of Arlington said he was holding a sign that said, "Shame on You" when a marcher leaned over the railing and punched him in the stomach. A U.S. Park Police officer wrote a report but no arrests were made.

Although the Pentagon required walkers to preregister for the event, officials did not provide a crowd estimate.

You don't need to know that! Mind your business!

Kevin Pannell, who stood on his prosthetic legs, said the Sept. 11 attacks still take their toll on the nation.

"I lost my legs in Baghdad, and 9/11 was the initiative," said Pannell, 27, of Woodbridge.

Huh?