Gov. Patrick says that he was taught that "all violent attack is a failure of human understanding." Please. Were the murders of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy caused by a "failure of human understanding"--or by the same spirit of evil that motivated 9/11?
Governor Deval Patrick tried yesterday to fend off criticism he has received over his Sept. 11 memorial service speech, when he said the terrorist attacks six years ago resulted in part from "a failure of human understanding."
"Frankly, I was taught in my church that all violent attack is a failure of human understanding," he said during an appearance on WTKK-FM radio yesterday. "The families, in the time I spent with them that day after the ceremony, were just absolutely lovely and appreciative."
Presiding over the state's memorial ceremonies for the first time, Patrick on Tuesday morning called the events of Sept. 11, 2001, "a mean and nasty and bitter attack on the United States.
"But it was also about the failure of human beings to understand each other and to learn to love each other," he said. "It seems to me that lesson [of] that morning is something that we must carry with us every day."
State Republican leaders have seized on his comments as implying the terrorist attacks could have been prevented.
UPDATE: More from the Boston Herald, Patriot Ledger, Worcester Telegram and Gazette, Brian Maloney and Jon Keller.
