Daily Inspiration Quote by Sidney Blumenthal

A sentence like this doesn’t argue so much as it indicts, and it does it with the lawyerly flourish of “On the contrary.” Blumenthal is reversing the burden of proof: whatever comforting narrative was being offered at the time (about preparedness, vigilance, inevitability) is treated as the real distortion, while the uglier alternative is positioned as the clearer-eyed reading. The phrase “it might even be” is doing strategic work too. It’s a hedge that sounds responsible but functions as a rhetorical crowbar, prying open the possibility that the administration’s story isn’t merely incomplete but actively self-serving.

The key move is “projection.” He’s not just alleging failure; he’s alleging psychology: that the administration (or its defenders) is accusing critics of what it itself is guilty of, a classic political counterpunch. That frames the debate as less about discrete errors and more about a governing temperament - “complacency and ineptitude” - two words that land differently. Complacency suggests choice, a relaxed posture toward a known risk. Ineptitude suggests incapacity, a lack of competence even if the will existed. Together they cover intent and ability, leaving little room for benign explanations.

The context is the post-9/11 scramble to assign responsibility for “the first 9 months in office,” a timeline that implicitly rejects the convenient shield of inheritance. Blumenthal’s intent is to make early inaction legible as political character, not an unfortunate bureaucratic lag. He’s writing into a moment when accountability was being negotiated in real time - and he’s trying to fix the moral ledger before it gets rewritten.