The 9/11 Excuse Lives

Over the past three years, the attack on the WTC has been used as an excuse for everything from sleeplessness, stomach disorders and missed work to bank robbery, drunk driving and videotaping little girls in the shower.

We were beginning to think (with some relief) that the days of the 9/11 Excuse as any sort of viable alibi for anything were finally coming to an end.

It seems we were wrong.

Prosecutors in the trial of Michael Silvestri said last week that Silvestri plans to dust that old gem off one more time. Silvestri, as you will undoubtedly remember, was the Staten Island firefighter who walloped fellow firefighter Robert Walsh across the face with a metal chair during a drunken firehouse brawl last New Year's Eve.

Those early, corroborated reports that the incident occurred after the two sloppy drunk firemen began arguing over Elvis trivia were dead wrong. Nope, it wasn't a stupid trivia spat-it was the terrorist attack that caused Silvestri to smash Walsh's face into three dozen loosely connected pieces.

"It's not my fault, your honor-you know, 9/11 and everything?"

It's pretty pathetic, but probably should have been expected. Scary thing is, the 9/11 Excuse might well have worked for him, had he not waited until now to whip it out.

-Jim Knipfel