By Ellis Henican
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
It was 5 years, 4 months and 17 days ago. But it might as well have been a million, so much has changed since then.
We’re going back into ancient history here - Sept. 14, 2001 - back to when President George W. Bush could speak into a bullhorn in the smoldering pit of Ground Zero and actually stir a whole nation with his words.
The pit isn’t smoldering any more. But it is still a pit. And before Bush returns to New York this morning, I needed one last time to soak up the fleeting feeling of that long-ago day, a day whose power and majesty have not been repeated in the 5 years, 4 months and 17 days since.
So yesterday afternoon, I was back at the fence at Ground Zero. The day was biting, but I kept my hands in my pockets and my hat pulled low. I held my breath and stared for several long minutes into the hole. I listened as carefully as I could.
I swear I could hear the president’s words again, echoing out of his bullhorn.
A bunch of cops, paramedics, firefighters and construction guys were down there with him. Bush was talking to them - and to us. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t especially dramatic or loud. But his words had an authority and a directness he has never been able to muster again.
Someone from the crowd called out: “We can’t hear you! “
Bush answered with what just might be the 25 most memorable words of his presidency.
“I can hear you,” the president said on that defiant and hopeful day. “The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. “
How long ago was that?
It was so long ago the whole world loved us then. So long ago, it was before we went to war with Saddam and let Osama get away. It was before Sunni and Shia were fighting each other in Iraq, before we had any idea how impossible that country was to get out of.
Before “weapons of mass destruction” and “Mission Accomplished” and “Wanted: Dead or Alive. " Before the president’s approval rating had fallen 55 points.
I wanted to remember that feeling again.
This presidential visit wasn’t supposed to be about 9/11 at all. Bush is coming to Wall Street to talk about the economy at Federal Hall.
But Ceasar Borja Jr. changed that, almost single-handedly. A 21-year-old student at Hunter College, Ceasar is the son of Cesar Borja, a police officer who worked 14-hour days in the pit at Ground Zero in the weeks and months after the terror attacks.
Like so many others who’d done that work, the father, at 52, had turned desperately ill. Last week, he was clinging to life, awaiting a lung transplant.
The son went to Washington for Bush’s State of the Union address. He was there as a guest of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But on the day of the speech, he got a terrible piece of news - his hero of a dad had lost his fight.
The son never got a chance to talk with Bush in Washington. But he may get that chance today. And word came from the White House that the president’s new budget proposal may include a fresh $25 million for sick 9/11 workers.
But as those details were still being sorted out, Ceasar Borja and some friends were making plans of their own. At 10 o’clock this morning, they decided, they’ll be right where I was yesterday, outside the pit at Ground Zero.
Some other people from the pit will be there, too. Ironworker Jonathan Sferazo. Paramedic Marvin Bethea. Jean Marie DeBiase, whose late husband Mark was a communications worker at Ground Zero. Alex Sanchez and Manuel Checo, two building cleanup workers. Jonathan Bennett from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health.
“Five years after 9/11, the federal government still has no long-term plan to monitor the health of Ground Zero responders,” Bennett said.
Will President Bush hear their pleas? Will the rest of the world?
Will the people who knocked down the towers, wherever they are?
We may know more today.