Evie,
That's said better than I ever could say. Last night, I heard one-time Clinton campaign/political advisor **** Morris on Fox. Now, I try to take what Mr. Morris says with many grains of salt, but I thought it interesting that he had no problems with the Bush-Cheyney ads and thought that referring to 9/11 as they did was just fine.
His only criticism of the Bush reelection effort was that it was too positive in nature, and that he thought that the time had already come for the President to trot out negative ads against Sen. Kerry.
I suspect that Karl Rove would rather not do that yet for fear that the GOP will be portrayed as somehow being "desperate". Time will tell if that decision is the correct one. It is worth noting that President Bush, in a speech last night, characterized as "irresponsible" the legislation reducing intelligence community funding that Sen. Kerry proposed in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. I think I know from where the attacks will come...
About being so appalled. Not all victims follow lock step together or are arrogant enough to believe that only their feelings count when discussing this NATIONAL tragedy. Anyone who has any question about that should listen to the petty sniping by victims families as they argue over their vision for a memorial at the WTC site.
Our 9/11
The attacks happened to us all.
But "the 9/11 families" are not a monolithic group that speaks in one voice, and nothing has made that more clear than the controversy over the Bush campaign ads.
It is one thing for individual family members to invoke the memory of all 3,000 victims as they take to the microphone or podium to show respect for our collective loss. It is another for them to attempt to stifle the debate over the future direction of our country by declaring that the images of 9/11 should be off-limits in the presidential race, and to do so under the rubric of "The Families of Sept. 11." They do not represent me. Nor do they represent those Americans who feel that Sept. 11 was a defining moment in the history of our country and who want to know how the current or future occupant of the Oval Office views the lessons of that day.
The images of Ground Zero, the Pentagon and Shanksville have been plastered over coffee mugs, T-shirts, placemats, book covers and postage stamps, all without a peep from many of these family members. I suspect that the real outrage over the ads has more to do with context than content. It's not the pictures that disturb them so much as the person who is using them. This is demonstrated in their affiliation with Moveon.org, a rabidly anti-Bush group that sponsored a rally they held last Friday calling for the president to pull his ads off the air. But by disingenuously declaring themselves "non-partisan" and insisting that it is a matter of "taste," they retain a powerful weapon that they have learned to exploit to their advantage. They are "9/11 family members" and therefore enjoy the cloak of deference that has been graciously conferred upon them by the public, politicians and, most significantly, the media.
As to the ads, Cokie Roberts had it pretty much right on This Week on Sunday. The Democrats hysterical response tells you all you need to know about what the real problem is they have with the ad -- no equivalent leadership, vision and resolve on their side.
Evie ![]()

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