9/11 as a Catchphrase for Lesser Topics With tension over the federal health care mandate unlikely to wane, the least that New Yorkers can hope for is that the worst day in their history will not be exploited any further to score political points. That's not too much to ask, is it? There's already been more than enough 9/11 abuse. The latest offense, in case you missed it, was committed by Representative Mike Pence of Indiana. Right after the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law, Mr. Pence met with fellow House Republicans. Politico reported that in this session he likened the court's ruling to the terrorist attacks of Sept. The congressman declined later to repeat what he had said, but he effectively confirmed the report by apologizing and acknowledging that his remarks were "thoughtless." Some would go so far as to say "witless." But that's where we are today. When things don't go their way, all too many in public life reach into a giant knapsack of glib metaphors, and come up with a line comparing their own grievances to some of history's most brutal moments. Offenders are found on both the right and the left. What they do - besides making themselves sound ridiculous - is trivialize history and insult those who truly suffered. Sept. 11 is but the most recent horror to be manhandled. As I've noted in a couple of past columns, the Holocaust, slavery, the massacre of American Indians and Jim Crow have all been disrespected to the point of desecration. "Plantation" is one of the abusers" favorites. When the other side has the majority - say, in Congress - some in the minority liken their status to that of working on a plantation. Both Republicans and Democrats have done this. "Lynching" is another word plucked from the knapsack now and again. Herman Cain (remember him?) stuck around long enough in the presidential campaign to cloak himself in racial victimhood, saying he was prepared for "the same high-tech lynching" that Clarence Thomas claimed he'd endured when the Senate considered his nomination for the Supreme Court. You don't like what's going on? Might as well call it a Holocaust. For example, Glenn Beck (remember him, too?) compared President Obama's policies on stem-cell research to "the final solution." There have been so many rhetorical perversions of the Holocaust and the slave trade that the list could go on endlessly. It would include a white protester in the Occupy Wall Street movement who was seen months ago holding a sign that said of the 99 percent, "We are the new slave class." Oh? Now Sept. 11 has joined the sorry lineup of monstrous episodes to be wrongly appropriated. After Mr. Pence's bout of foot-in-mouth disease, New York magazine put together other 9/11 comparisons that it correctly labeled "over the top." Any such list probably misses some real doozies, but this one will suffice. It includes the following gems: ¶Neal Boortz, a radio host, said, "Barack Obama is a bigger disaster to this country than 9/11." ¶Gary Bauer, president of the group American Values, urged a big turnout in the 2010 Congressional elections, saying voters would be like the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who "voted to fight back" against the hijackers on 9/11. ¶Rick Santelli, an analyst with CNBC, said of state and federal budget crises: "If the country is ever attacked like it was on 9/11, we all respond with a sense of urgency. What's going on on balance sheets throughout the country is the same type of attack. ¶Alec Baldwin, the actor, said of the Bush-Gore election that "what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York City." ¶Rick Santorum, the former senator and presidential candidate, said of same-sex marriage: "This is an issue just like 9/11. We didn't decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. There's probably scant hope that the abuse will stop anytime soon. If anything, it might get worse as the immediacy of Sept. 11 fades. That's why New Yorkers may want to remind their compatriots, regardless of political leanings, that 9/11 is, you know, the 9/11 of political metaphors.