9/11 +6.

And now, from Viewpoint, an extra special commentary on September 11th.

You know every time this date comes round, it seems to be more and more infamous every time. There is no doubt that what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was the kind of event that you do not ever forget if you witnessed it. I happened to be in front of the TV that afternoon UK time, and I did witness the live video footage of the second plane crashing into the other tower of the World Trade Center.

Looking back at the in depth sections of BBC News and CNN reminds me just what a mind numbing event it was, how at the time, we had no immediate idea what had really gone on. Even now, we know a bit about what happened, but we really don't know it all. What has happened since has been the great politicising of 9/11, and the increased divisiveness of politics in the USA, which since Reagan has always been somewhat divided, but the 1994 congressional elections saw it stepped up a level and 9/11 has seen it stepped up to yet another level of intensity.

Patriotism became the new watchword. If you criticised the Bush administration's policies, you were called unpatriotic, or even treasonous. It became almost like the new McCarthyism, where those back in the mid 50s who disagreed with the policies of time were branded as Communists. This was at the time when Stalin ruled the Communist regime of the Soviet Union, and was the "enemy du jour" for the Republican administration of Dwight D Eisenhower.

Now, 6 years on, the world has never seen a more unpopular US president, nor a more divided political landscape, helped in no small part by a so-called news channel, whose real aim is to spread anti-Democrat and pro-Republican propoganda. A channel which blurs the line between news and opinion and not only presents it as fact, but as "Fair and Balanced" news, rather than what it truly is. It is the ultimate in spin-meistering, and it used 9/11 to make itself the most popular news channel in the ratings for years to come.

Now, as unpopular as President Bush has become, Fox News Channel is slowly headed the same way, albeit nowhere nearly as unpopular as the president and his Republican party. But as viewers slowly realise that they are being fed propoganda by Fox News, they are moving away from the channel. Last Friday, Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC was the most popular programme in the key 25-54 advertising demo, according to the Live + Same Day DVR ratings, beating Bill O'Reilly for the first time ever.

All of this is a result of the wasted opportunity that was basically handed to President Bush in the wake of 9/11. An opportunity to create a truly bi-partisan politics, where both Democrats and Republicans could go forward together in unison, finding common ground. What happened was not that. What happened was Republicans decided how things were going to be and expected everybody to follow like sheep into the pen of warmongering and fearmongering. It happened for a while, but there is an old political saying which Republicans would do well to remember. ""You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time."