Paul Beston The American Spectator comments on President Bush’s declaration that September 11 be known as ‘Patriot’s Day’ in honour of the sacrifices of firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers on that fateful day.

He suggests the attack in 2001 is analogous to the attack on Pearly Harbour in 1941 in that it was only the second time Americans had been attacked on their own soil - and both times they were unprepared. In 1941 however the US concentrated their efforts less on grieving and more on the business of avenging their dead.

Last Sunday, families gathered at Ground Zero to read the names of the dead, and emotions ran high as always. I wonder for how much longer we will encourage survivors to come back to the scene of their greatest torment and re-enact their grief in such a public way. Such rituals can only serve to keep old wounds forever fresh, and they provide an annual reminder for our enemies of the devastating effectiveness of their deeds.

Even while the wounds of Pearl Harbor were fresh, Franklin Roosevelt recognized that a great nation shouldn’t grovel so much in the mire of one of its darkest days, especially when it had a war to win. It is not true that repressing the pain of loss means forgetting it. That is one of our touchy-feely myths. Repression is a key to survival, and Americans once knew this intuitively.

Better that we privately ackowledge our feelings than turn them into an annual ‘Diana moment’. Nothing degrades real grief more than others - politicians, primarily - free-riding on its back in order to demonstrate some superior qualities of their own.