So why did United 93, the movie about "the flight that fought back," fail to dominate the weekend's box office?

Here's a theory for you: Maybe what the passengers of that flight did -- they saved the plane from being flown into the U.S. Capitol -- didn't seem like a victory, a triumph, a reason for cheering, to most moviegoers, in part because of the way we've been conditioned to think about the people who were in the U.S. Capitol on 9/11, to a great extent because of right-wing rhetoric over the last few decades.

If passengers had forced the hijackers of a plane not to crash it into a building full of ordinary citizens, America would see it as both tragedy and triumph. But this plane was headed toward Congress. Congress is the government, and government is pond scum.

Ronald Reagan said so for years. Grover Norquist wants to shrink government until it's small enough so we can drown it in a bathtub.

If you hear that kind of talk enough, the deaths avoided in the Capitol don't seem enough to offset the deaths that took place. The deaths that took place just seem like a tragedy and a horror.

The right can't have it both ways. The right can't tell us to hate government and then expect us to cheer when people save the government.