Posted on 03/04/2004 12:21:22 PM PST by The_Victor
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Families who lost relatives in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks voiced outrage on Thursday at President Bush (news - web sites)'s first ads of his re-election campaign that use images of the devastated World Trade Center to portray him as the right leader for tumultuous times.
"Families are enraged," said Bill Doyle, 57, of New York, who is active in several Sept. 11 family groups. "What I think is distasteful is that the president is trying to use 9/11 as a springboard for his re-election."
"It's entirely wrong. He's had 3,500 deaths on his watch, including Iraq (news - web sites)," said Doyle, whose 25-year-old son Joseph died at the trade center.
Long time Bush adviser Karen Hughes defended the four commercials -- which began running on Thursday in at least 16 important battleground states -- as "tastefully done."
"September 11 is not some distant event in the past," Hughes told ABC's "Good Morning America."
"It's a defining event for our future and important that we learn the lessons of that day. All of us feel deeply that tragedy but it's also important to recognize the impact it had on our national public policy," she said.
Two ads refer to the hijacked airliner attacks as the Bush campaign seeks to present him as a leader who rose to the challenge. One ad shows World Trade Center ruins behind an American flag. Another shows firefighters removing the flag-draped remains of a victim.
Ron Willett of Walnut Shade, Missouri, said he was disgusted when he saw the ads. Willett, who lost his 29-year-old son, John Charles, when planes hit the trade center, said he is now so upset, "I would vote for Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) before I would vote for Bush."
"I think it is an atrocity," his wife, Lucy, added. "He should not be allowed to use those images at all."
STAY AWAY FROM GROUND ZERO
With Republicans holding their political convention in New York in late August, victims said they hope Bush does not make it worse by speaking at the site now known as Ground Zero, which many view as sacred.
"If he does, there will be a protest and it could get ugly," said Doyle.
Several family members said their annoyance at Bush's using the emotional images stems in part from his refusal to testify in open session before the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"There is really a hypocrisy here. The Bush administration will not cooperate fully with the 9/11 commission and at the same time they are trying to invoke and own 9/11 and use it for his re-election," said Stephen Push from the Washington office of "Families September 11th." His wife died on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon (news - web sites) that day.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, which endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), also denounced the campaign spots as "hypocrisy at its worst."
"I'm disappointed but not surprised that the president would try to trade on the heroism of those fire fighters," the union's general president, Harold Schaitberger, said.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had not yet seen the ads but had no objections.
"I haven't a problem in reminding people in the country and the world of the sacrifices that the New York City fire department and police department and civilians made," Bloomberg said.
And not all relatives of victims were upset by the ads.
"I don't have a problem with his pointing to his leadership at that time. He helped us weather it. To me it was a tasteful ad," said Patricia Reilly, who sister Lorraine Lee died in the New York attacks. (additional reporting by Larry Fine)
I liked best of all the confident refrain "I know what we need to do . . ." That's strikes an excellent chord because, in my view, the most important underlying issue in this campaign will be the President's competence.
I guarantee the Democrats fed those peoples' names to the media.
They asked the Taney County Commission last year to place a memorial plaque at the government building where John Willett served as the state's youngest county treasurer. Gov. Mel Carnahan had appointed him to the post at age 23 in 1996, the year after John received his bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He served 18 months before losing an election bid to keep the post as a Democrat in a predominantly Republican county.
Oh yeah. They are Democrats.
Unbelievable. Irrespective of whatever differences, by making this statement this individual sows hiself to be so absolutely depraved and ignorant as to be dangerous.
Talk about a useful idiot.
Unbelievable. Irrespective of whatever differences, by making this statement this individual shows himself to be so absolutely depraved and ignorant as to be dangerous.
Talk about a useful idiot.
That so? Why don't you regale us with your "reasoning".
If people in the media are going to be so willing to SEEK comments of a few and blast them as POLITICAL headlines, we might as well pile on with similar absurdity.
I thank God every day that we had a President that less concerned with negociating and diplomacy than he was with taking the only steps terrorists understand: massive force.
When are these papers going to stop political ads for socialism?
Thank the Lord for Google.
And it's not like the reporters sought out random opinion on this, and happened to get a negative response about the ads. The reporters deliberately sought negative quotes from people who are already on the record as bashing Bush. Like I said in another thread about another article about this story, they never interview anymore the retired firefighter who Bush had his arm around at Ground Zero, as that guy was a Democrat who has become a Bush fan!
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