THE WEEK IN REVIEW

 It was quite a week for the United States of America. We paused on September 11 to remember the attack on our country twenty-four years ago, and then there was the murder of Charlie Kirk, ostensibly for political reasons. 

We have a few thoughts. 

9/11 might well be the last time the country was united without thought to politics. The nation rallied around President Bush, and mourned the brave fire fighters of the New York Fire Department ("New York's Bravest") and other first responders who ran towards the danger, not away from it.  

There was no thought that if President Bush succeeded in the days after 9/11, then his political enemies would fail. Politics had nothing to do with the initial response to the attack, something that we sadly think would not have been the case if President Obama had been the president at the time. The strategy of Obama's political enemies was to thwart his successes, and work for his failure, even if the country suffered. 

As to the murder of Mr. Kirk, someone we had never heard of, it was immediately blamed on "leftists" and "liberals" before anyone was in custody. The nearly immediate narrative reminded us of what occurred when someone broke into Speaker Pelosi's home and attacked her husband while looking for her. Desperate to change the narrative after the assailant was caught, dark theories emerged suggesting that it was someone from the left who attacked him, when clearly it was the opposite. 

So we began to think about other high-profile assassinations and assassination attempts, and the narratives that emerged after them. 

When President Reagan was shot, it was not by a Democrat or a liberal,  but by a troubled young man trying to impress an actress he was imagining a relationship with. There was no political motivation,  and when the Gipper walked into the State of Union address a few months later, the sustained standing ovation from both sides of the aisle was heartfelt. 

What were the political beliefs of the man who assassinated President Kennedy? He had been a Marine, gone to live in the Soviet Union, and handed our "fair play for Cuba" pamphlets. No mutterings from the Democrats that the Republicans and Nixon were behind the assassination. 

Very few people reading this blog will even know that President Teddy Roosevelt assumed the presidency when President.....(can you guess without Chat GBT? Nah, didn't think so) McKinley was shot by....(if you didn't know McKinley was assassinated, you won't know this)   Leon Czolgosz, who was an anarchist who had lost his job during the panic of 1893. McKinley liked meeting the public and shunned the protections of his office. His secretary William Cortelyou was so worried about the trip to the Temple Of Music in Buffalo that he took it off the schedule twice, only to have McKinley restore it twice. 

Before McKinley, President James Garfield was assassinated, and there is a great book on that if you want to read about it. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President  by Candice Millard. 

And before Garfield it was Lincoln, whose assassin shouted sic semper tyrannis after firing the fatal shot and jumping on to the stage at Ford's theater.  And no, sic semper tyrannis does not mean "take the Dolphins and the points on Sunday", but thus always to tyrants. 

 Our point is that most assassins are deeply troubled people, with an inflated sense of importance, who act for their own reasons, and are not part of a larger political movement like the Democratic or Republican party. 

And yet sadly, it appears the MAGA crowd, upon learning of the shooting of Mr. Kirk, immediately attempted to politicize the murder.  

And that is an arrant display of disrespect to Mr. Kirk who leaves behind a wife and two young children. Even if his killer had political ideals, he does not represent the mainstream thought of either party, just like Oswald or Czolgosz or Booth did not represent any major political movement. 

Moments of tragedy have no place in politics. There was no politics when the NYFD ran into the World Trade Center to rescue people. And there should be no attempt for political gain in the tragic murder of a young man who leaves behind a family to go on without him. 

Many people in the comments and in private emails asked our thoughts on these events. Well, here they are.