Podhoretz: Obama's Strange Oil Leak Analogy

In a column for the New York Post, John Podhoretz asks why Obama thinks there is any similarity between the Gulf oil leak, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks:

The first thing that needs to be said is this: The only thing the oil spill and 9/11 have in common is nothing.

Yes, 9/11 was very important and so is the spill. But many terrible things happen, are important -- and are unalike. The Haiti earthquake of 2009 and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 were both important, but they had nothing whatever to do with each other. Nor did the tsunami of 2004 and the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Just as in those cases, what's most notable about 9/11 and the oil spill is how essentially dif ferent they are. One was a brilliantly conceived and diabolical act of war; the other a horrific accident that was the last thing anybody wanted to happen. One was designed to decapitate the US government and deliver a mortal blow to the world's financial system; the other wasn't designed at all.

One was purposeful destruction intended to harm. The other is a purposeless catastrophe that was in no way intentional at all but will do great harm. One was an attack on the United States. The other was an accident.

So what on earth could the president have been thinking?