In the months after 9/11 first responders in NYC were given the full fluffer treatment by the media. It sickened me at the time, not because that attention was undeserved, but because I knew Peggy Noonan and the gang would drop their "firefighters are TEH HOT" schtick the instant the next union contract came up for negotiation. Too many of those paying tribute were clearly just paying tribute to what they imagined were projections of their own inner hero, a temporary narcissistic fetish.
Now we know the heroes of 9/11 and after were working in a damaging toxic soup, that EPA and health authorities were full of shit about that, and that many of those heroes are sick. Really sick.
And the Republicans are blocking money to help them.
Very bad people, they are.
