Most anyone with a heartbeat, and certainly anyone who could smell the acrid air of Manhattan at the time, clouded with the ashes of thousands of people, took offense at Sontag's coldness.
But even more appalling in retrospect was the shallowness of Sontag's context, as predictable and one-dimensional as what George W. Bush would yell through a bullhorn at Ground Zero.
In all that would transpire in the years after 9/11, Sontag and others who shared her immediate reaction would have reason to consider themselves prophets: the invasion of Iraq, carried out under false pretense.
Throttled by fear, America lost its mind. An overwhelming majority now agree on this point-a Pew poll.
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