Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001 | 8:21 a.m.
Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at [email protected]
LIKE THOUSANDS of other parents Tuesday morning, I gave my daughter an extra-firm hug and held on a little longer as I dropped her off at school. She melded in with the cluster of her first-grade classmates, prancing and playing, oblivious to the transformative events that had just occurred across the country. Her innocence, their innocence seemed so incongruous with the surreal, unreal devastation in New York and Washington.
It is so easy to get caught up in the cliches after watching the day unfold--the Pearl Harbor analogies, the use of the word cowardly to describe the attack, the speculation on the failure of the U.S. intelligence community.
But beyond those echoing banalities from politicians and talking heads, the day left me with an indelible montage of memories and thoughts after a day spent mostly at a TV station, trying to make sense of the inexplicable. I thought how hardly anyone will be untouched by this when all is said and done. A family member involved, a friend affected, an acquaintance with a connection to New York or Washington or to one of the passengers on one of the planes. It will be one of those events that sears individuals and binds a country.
I marveled at how so many politicians rose to the occasion, reacting viscerally instead of, well, politically, how they displayed the same sadness and outrage that most people felt. As someone who often mocks or dissects the rhetoric employed by politicians, I realized that there are times when the public needs the reassurance of its leaders, even if those leaders can't do anything.
So when Mayor Oscar Goodman stood up for a few minutes and offered firm, sensitive and sympathetic remarks, he hit just the right chords. Goodman's public comments were the best emblem (and he was not alone) of how the local politicians had gone from the ridiculous -- last week's performance at theYucca Mountain hearing and His Honor's was most egregiously silly -- to the sublime -- where seriousness trumped all hyperbole and (most) political calculation on Tuesday.
Then there was that scene as darkness fell on the bipartisan assemblage of congressmen and senators, which also served that rhetorical purpose of making people feel that the country would go on. The spontaneous singing of God Bless America at first seemed hokey but then was inspiring -- where else, in what other country, would you see such a thing?
All of this, alas, contrasted with the first-day performance President Bush, who initially said in Florida that he was committed to tracking down the folks responsible for the terrorism. The folks? Not a time to be, well, folksy, Mr. President. And later, in a national TV address, the president did his best to reassure the nation but was all too obviously terrorized by a TelePrompTer and did not project much confidence.
All of that, of course, will be forgotten as he decides how to respond to the attack and how his administration handles the detritus. But it was not a good day for the president, who was invisible (probably for safety reasons) and gave too many a sense that the government was in disarray.
Locally, it was hard not to imagine and unimaginable -- a plane shattering the emerald veneer of the MGM Grand or exploding into City Hall. Las Vegas has never appeared very high on terrorist target lists, but as we grow into more of an international dateline and the skyline becomes more recognizable across the world, the reality is: Who knows?
Las Vegans, surely like others across the country, also rose to the occasion. A visiting friend waited in line about three hours to give blood. Residents called the airport to offer rooms to stranded tourists. In a world, especially here, where people have retreated behind block walls and gates, the sense of community, for a change, was real.
In journalism, you find yourself on days like these riding a wave of adrenaline and excitement, often failing to pause to recognize the tragedy or the enormity of what has happened. Later, a mixture of guilt and sympathy often washes together with the exhaustion.
The day ended with dinner at a restaurant with a colleague from the TV station. As we talked about the day, I paused and looked around at the tables. The bookend effect was eerie.
Like the children that morning at my daughter's school, the restaurant patrons were going on as if nothing had happened, laughing and talking, enjoying a night out. After a day full of cliches, another applies: Life goes on.
But the innocence is gone.
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