Honestly, people were too shocked to hate America, and for once, perhaps the only time in recent history, America seemed humbled. It was hit with something so big, so nasty, that the usual bravado fell away and America, as a collective, was left reeling. The whole world was in complete shock.

In that moment we were all willing to let history go away, to embrace America for the victim it was.

It was, briefly, a return to the America that the world loved: The one that built a country from the "wretched refuse" of other countries, that made the working class something less than serfs, that made enormous sacrifices to liberate Europe from tyranny.

"Photo ops"? It wasn't that. Change in foreign policy? There wasn't time for those changes to go into effect before America was back to its old self, only instead of fighting some endless war against "communism" the new enemy was "terrorism" and instead of Vietnamese it was "Muslims". Of having "Freedom Fries" because France wouldn't buddy up and invade a sovereign country for no reason.

There was a very short gap between vigils in the street around the world, in places that had boundless hate for America, because 9/11 is not the sort of thing you'd wish on your worst enemy.

Call it naïve if you want, but we were all willing to be naïve that day.