I had an odd reaction on 9/11.

I was living in Chicago. My son was four, at home, not in school at that point. His babysitter was there so we could get some work done.

I must have come in late, a few minutes after the first plane hit because at first I wasn't sure if it was tape or live. I knew right away it was deliberate -- terrorism not an accident. Not on a bright, clear day.

My reaction was to laugh. Not a happy laugh, but the outraged, disbelieving, hubristic sound you make when someone has pushed you to the point where you have no choice but to hurt them. Revenge came first. Sadness later. I suppose that's my core personality: the first thought is always to push back. My first perception is always about the power dynamic. Normal emotions show up later, after the moment of crisis is past. Self doubt comes . . . well, it usually doesn't.

I've often described myself, only half-jokingly, as a civilized thug. It's not that I run around getting into fistfights, I don't. I'm a nice guy. My deal with the world is: don't push me, I won't push you.

But that inner thug is why I'm not a liberal. You remember the famous line of Sean Connery's in The Untouchables? "Capone sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue." You can have your gentle Jesus meek and mild talking about blessing the meek, I'll take 007.

By that afternoon on 9/11, at the point where it was becoming clear that this was an Al Qaeda action I didn't just want Bin Laden dead. I wanted Afghanistan melted down. I wanted to see mushroom clouds in bloom.

By September 20th 2001, when President Bush went to Congress to speak to the American people I had tears running down my face and it is no exaggeration to say that if he'd asked me to sell my house to buy bombs I'd have done it. I'd have dragged my pudgy, middle-aged ass off to boot camp if he'd asked it.

Of course that wasn't what happened. Instead Mr. Bush gave me money. At that time we were selling a lot of books, cashing big royalty checks, so I was "the rich," I got the tax cut. I remember feeling insulted. As though I wouldn't willingly give them whatever I had to win this war. As if at a time like that my main concern was a few extra grand to spend on buying muni bonds and dinners at Charlie Trotters. I was 47 years old at the time, I knew I wasn't going to be fitted for a uniform, but I thought I'd be asked to throw something into the effort. But, no. Like 99% of Americans I was asked for nothing.

Mr. Bush started to lose me right there, when he said he was keeping the tax cuts. That's all people like me were supposed to care about: as long as got our piles of cash, we'd be okay. It was a slap in the face. Some tiny sliver of society would carry the weight, and the rest of us were to do nothing. In fact, we were to carry on precisely as if nothing at all had happened.

I'll never be a real liberal because when a guy hits me I don't wonder whether I've done something to deserve it, I just wonder if I can beat him.

But I'll never be a true conservative, either, because there are things more important to me than money.

This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on Sunday, September 10, 2006. You can leave your response.