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It's the Substance

By Chris Suellentrop
Posted Friday, Oct. 5, 2001, at 12:08 PM ET

Moira,

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I wasn't criticizing your right to ask questions. Nor did I mean to imply that I agreed with everything in "The Fray" posts that I linked to (as you surely noticed, I didn't quote from them wholesale). You say you're "asking questions," and I conceded that three of your questions were valid. So what did I mean?

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I took umbrage only with your first "question," a rhetorical question meant to make a point, not an honest solicitation of opinions as you are now pretending. You wrote: "Do you think this has never happened to anyone else?" I gave you an answer: No.

More important, even if this has happened somewhere else, so what? Does that make our grief less real or less valid? Does that mean we should not mourn our dead? Does that mean we should not try to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future?

You imply that I was criticizing your etiquette. You ask for a "rule." But I wasn't criticizing the fact that you asked a question. I was debunking the substance of your argument, which you've kindly dropped. If in my anger I was too unkind or if I attributed others' arguments to you, I apologize.

But I do think your argument is akin to reminding mourners that they ought to remember the tragedies of others. That's your point, isn't it? That other people have died, too? That people die all the time? I ask again: So what?

This is the message I took from your third paragraph Wednesday: "Tragedies like this have happened elsewhere, so quit your bitching. You should be mourning the dead in Baghdad." I think that's a fair reading. If you want to offer an alternative exegesis, I'd love to hear it.

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