From the Duh Files
I wasn't nearly as surprised to hear that the Department of Defense has shut down the Pentagon daycare as I was to hear there was one there in the first place.
Ever since a hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, parents whose children attend day care there have been assured their kids were safe. But last week, Defense Department officials told them the center would close in the fall because they could no longer ensure the children's safety.
Now, as convenient as it can be to have on-site daycare when you're a working parent - it would have been a dream come true for many years - if I worked at a place likely to be a terror target, I'd keep my kids well-distant no matter what the inconvenience.
Yep - the Pentagon is a military base. Military bases are targets. Parents don't keep their kids at target sites. Seems obvious to me - but then, I'm just a conservative who reads a lot of military history, so what would I know?
Not nearly as much as my liberal counterparts, who are saying things like this:
The Pentagon is closing down its childcare centre. Why? Because America is much safer now, obviously.
Maybe the author has heard; we're at war. Nothing in life is completely safe - you could get hit by a bus right after reading this. Life is even less-so when you're on the world's foremost military base and we're at war with people with all sorts of surprising tricks. You can calculate the risks, as most people do; I know people from rural areas who think I'm nuts for living in a large city during a war with terrorists who are looking for WMDs of their own. I think the risks are acceptable for my family and I; if I lived on Manhattan or in DC, I might think differently. And if I worked in the Pentagon, I'd never dream of keeping my kids in a daycare there.
Or this: this:
I guess the Pentagon forgot to tell the White House speechwriters about this.
The author - former Calpundit and formerly good blogger Kevin Drum - is referring to the President's statement that the world is a safer place today that it was before. "See?" the left snarks, "Inconsistency equals hypocrisy equals BUSH LIED!"
Rubbish. Parts of the world - Iraq and Israel to name two - are safer today, by any objective measure. And in the Pentagon, and Manhattan, and the rest of the US? Our safety before the war was the fool's safety, a bubble waiting for a strong breeze to pop it.
We're at war. And even if we elect John Kerry and begin the process of chronic, plausibly-deniable capitulation, we still will be. The Pentagon and Manhattan and for that matter the Mall of America are, and will remain, potential targets, even as the world becomes incrementally safer.
And until the war is won, I wouldn't want my kids on-site at any major targets, no matter what anyone, left or right, says.
Posted by Mitch at
July 19, 2004 08:04 AM
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***Yep - the Pentagon is a military base. Military bases are targets. Parents don't keep their kids at target sites. Seems obvious to me - but then, I'm just a conservative who reads a lot of military history, so what would I know?***
I wouldn't be suprised to find that there is more to this story and that it really doesn't have to do with security at all. After all, the day care was moved to Ft. Meyer which surely can't be any safer than the Pentagon.
The fact is that almost every military base in the country has a day care. In fact, most every installation has housing for military families. Some of the larger ones even have on-site elementary schools.
While their might be a negligible increase in the chance of being a casualty of a terrorist attack by being on a military base, overall they are generally safer than their surrounding communities. I would feel safer having my daughter stay on just about any base in the country rather than in the general public.
Posted by: Joe Carter at July 19, 2004 11:28 AMI agree, Joe - bases in general are probably a lot safer.
My point - and I may not have been as clear on this - is that the Pentagon isn't just *any* base. It's one of the nation's primary symbolic targets, a status that's already drawn one attack.
I think my kids *would* be safer at Fort Snelling (the only nearby base) than in a typical daycare in St. Paul. But Fort Snelling isn't in the same targeting league as the Pentagon.
At least I hope not.
Posted by: mitch at July 19, 2004 11:56 AMBut Fort Snelling isn't in the same targeting league as the Pentagon.
At least I hope not.
Not unless the terrorists are going after Minnesota's supply of jaw harps.
Posted by: Ryan at July 19, 2004 12:01 PM