Today Show Uses 9/11 Relatives to Flog Bush Campaign over Use of WTC Images

For a second day, The Today Show continued its assault on the Bush campaign for its use of fleeting images of the WTC on 9/11 in its current round of campaign ads.

To be fair and accurate, I must say that Katie Couric's words themselves were not nearly so provocative or accusatory as those of the guests she chose to bring on.

The three guests, three women, were relatives of people who had died in the WTC.

One was a seethingly angry, partisan, Bush-hater. How's this for a formulation: "President Bush has only agreed to come before the 9/11 Commission for one hour. That's 2 seconds for every life that was lost."

The same woman said that she was frustrated with the Bush administration and "fighting to get the President to come before commission given that 3,000 people were murdered on his watch." Then, apparently a devotee of the Howard Dean/Cynthia McKinney school of history, she stated "the Bush administration did nothing to stop it despite all warnings they had and did nothing to mitigate things on the day of the attack."

Katie tipped her hand with this little Freudian slip. She referred to the Bush "ad blitz," then tried to recover, saying "uh, ad campaign, I should call it." She mentioned that some relatives were upset, but then addressed the one pro-Bush guest, saying: "I understand you're fine with it, you don't think it was inappropriate?"

The woman stated: "Prior to 9/11 we reacted to attacks very minimally and I appreciated the leadership of Pres. Bush. He realized it wasn't merely a crime but [part of a war.]

A second guest, who was clearly anti-Bush but not as virulent as the first guest said: "I don't think images of death and destruction on 9/11 should be used for political gain. The issues yes, but not the images."

To Katie's credit, she did ask "would you feel the same way if Kerry used them?" The woman claimed that she would, "asolutely."

Then it was back to the vituperative guest. "They were nice warm fuzzy ads, with nice music, but that's not my reality of 9/11. We need to examine Bush's actions on 9/11. On 9/11, he was in a classroom listening to children reading to him. He has stonewalled the 9/11 commission. The time, money and energy used to produce the ads should be used to cooperate with commission."

"It's really hard to discuss the state of the country without mentioning a seminal event in our lives, the biggest news event in our lives - I know it wasn't a news event for you. It's Hard to totally stay away from it, isn't it?"

The Bush-supporting guest opined "I think the ads were done tastefully." News agencies use the ads all the time.

Guest #2 stated that "it's OK to use footage for news piece or historical retrospective. But not for political gain."

Katie concluded by stating that "I'm sure the controversty will continue." Which if Katie has anything to do with it, it certainly will.

Have there been families from Flight 93 or the Pentagon complaining about the ads?

I've noticed that the majority of the WTC discenter families are from the group "Peaceful Tomorrows" which seems to be some Anti War on Terror and Anti Iraq War group related to the American Friends Service Committee.

From This Site:

September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows was launched on February 14, 2002, and today includes 50 family members directly affected by September 11, as well as 2,000 supporters. Its mission is to seek effective nonviolent solutions to terrorism, and to acknowledge the shared experience of September 11 families with all people similarly affected by violence throughout the world. By conscientiously exploring peaceful options in their search for justice, the group's members choose to spare additional innocent families the suffering that they have already experienced, as well as to break the endless cycle of violence and retaliation engendered by war. In doing so, they hope to create a safer world for themselves and for their children.

I found Ronald Michael Breitweiser:

http://www.september11-tribute.org/Victims/WTCVictims.htm

I don't know why he didn't show up in several of the lists.
Interesting.

I find her ranting and raving very curious. She never mentions her husband. Just blames Bush. Only Bush. Let me inform her of something;

clinton (Democrat) lobbed a missile into Iraq, said to retaliate against an alleged assassination attempt on Former President Bush (41). It accomplished nothing. The alleged assassination attempt was never proven in a court of law. In response to terror attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, clinton (Democrat) became the first President to PREEMPTIVELY send missiles to "suspected terror targets" in Afghanistan and the Sudan, killing many civilians, and inflaming citizens around the world. The habit of missle attacks which were not approved of by the UN, were widely condemned by most international governments. Overwhelming world reaction determined that the missile strikes would either be "ineffective" in fighting the threat of global terrorism or would have the deleterious effect of unleashing even more "extremism" and "violence" against the United States. (ref: 9-11-01) It was never proven that these targets were weapons factories as the Administration claimed. No proof of weapons were ever found. clinton (Democrat) was offered Osama bin Laden three times by Sudan and he declined. In 1993, clinton (Democrat) expanded the limited humanitarian mission in Somalia, to include rebuilding the nation. The UN "peacekeepers" embarked on a war against Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed. [Bin Laden flunky] clinton (Democrat) included our troops in this war. Aideed and the Somalis never attacked us. In October, the forces of Aideed brought down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters, in Mogadishu and precipitated a vicious daylong firefight, wounding 77 and killing 18 Americans, whose naked, mutilated bodies were drug through the streets. This horrifying act was broadcast around the world. This, despite clinton (Democrat) sending former President Carter (Democrat) to negotiate peace talks with Aideed. Afterward, clinton declined to bring Aideed to justice, when offered his capture by frightened clan allies, instead clinton (Democrat) decided to cut and run--quit the mission in Somalia. In fact, two months later to the day, US soldiers were escorting Aideed to the Mogadishu airport by motorcade and flying him to Addis Ababa in a US Army airplane! Aideed remained in power until Aug. 1995. Clinton's retreat broadcast a signal of weakness around the world. It sent a message to our foes, that America will change her policies if terrorists kill our people. During the war with Aideed, the clinton administration sent Mohamed Aideed's son, Hussein to Somalia as a Marine Corps translator. He left the military, and remained in Somalia, becoming a warlord himself and being responsible for the deaths and displacement of 50,000 Somali's. clinton (Democrat) invaded Haiti. Haiti never attacked us. A brokered deal instigated by former President Carter (Democrat), allowed clinton (Democrat) to send in our military to place Jean-Bertrand Aristide in power, knowing full well what a despot the man was. This is one of foreign policy’s all-time worst liberal bungles. Today, the disastrous results of Clinton’s experiment in Caribbean colonialism are painfully evident.

Therein is her answer to the 9-11 attacks.

This whining wench and her ilk have been financed by the Tides Foundation to be ready to make these horrible lies/mantras against president Bush.

Thanks to DeBug=int13 for providing these links and the reality of these scumbags.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1091052/posts?
page=96#96

And who is this survivors group "9-11 families for a Peaceful Tomorrow"?

Aww - phooey on them -

The real name of the outfit is September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

And from all appearances it is a fund-raising front for the Tides Center (EIN 94-3213100) of San Francisco - and "Peaceful Tomorrows" doesn't try to hide that they are affiliated on their contribute page. I know some Freepers are familiar with the Tides Center, and for those who are not, it is a non-profit organization that rakes in fairly big bucks ($63+ mill in FY 2002, which included $5+ mill in Government grants) to distribute out grants and allocations to various and sundry "social" projects and causes, with left-wing groups getting decent cuts of the action - they consistently lay out a good bit of change to anti-second amendment groups, for instance. September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows doesn't appear to be necessarily autonomous from the Tides Center. Interestingly, the P.O. box listed on the "Peaceful Tomorrows" site shares the same location address and zip in the neighborhood with such notable organizations as The New Formulation: an Anti-Authoritarian Review of Books (a biannual journal examining the value of recent publications to the development of contemporary anarchist theory and politics), Institute for Anarchist Studies, Radical Magick (an "Eclectic Ceremonial Based Magick Group"), South Asian AIDS Action, Lesbian and Gay Labor Network, Dyke Action Machine! or DAM! - not that there's anything wrong with that (in Jerry Seinfeld voice). The Fellowship of Reconciliation website that is also mentioned on "Peaceful Tomorrows" contribute page says it all - offices in Wash. DC and also San Francisco.

Though they may splash New York this and New York that all around, "Peaceful Tomorrows" is created and based in Oakland California, founded and directed by Barry Amundson and sister-in-law Kelly Campbell, with the web technical matters being handled by Steve Simitzis of Saturn5 Productions in San Francisco, which has an apparent mission statement of providing web consulting and "hosting for artists, online communities, activist organizations"

Amundson is Designer and IT manager for the San Francisco branch of Fenton Communications, a "public interest communications" company that has offices in Washington DC, New York NY and San Francisco.

They have a rather interesting list of clientele that include -

MoveOn.org
People For the American Way
Nelson Mandela - Presidential Election
Greenpeace
Ben and Jerry's
Rock the Vote (which is also a "top five" paid contractor for the Tides Center)

Can probe here for the whole listing.

Here's a bit from lengthy LA Times article about what they do and the crowd they hang with - I think the Moderators won't have a cow over this excerpt -

October 1, 2002
Operation: Peace
Antiwar movement reflects a different America than in past eras, but diverse allies keep the spirit alive.
By REED JOHNSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

"We want to poison your mind," teases the woman with slate-colored hair outside First Baptist Church in Koreatown. Swathed in natural fibers and sporting an anti-Dubya button, she's minding a table piled high with books, pamphlets and stickers decrying the sorry state of the planet--wars, corporate malfeasance, environmental disasters-in-the-making, and so on--along with half a dozen copies of the revolutionary rabble-rousings of Chairman Mao.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

But the rally's emotional climax occurred when Kelly Campbell and Barry Amundson, members of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group composed of relatives of 9/11 victims, embraced beneath a giant video screen where images of the burning twin towers had flashed by moments earlier. Barry Amundson, 32, is the brother of Craig Amundson, a 28-year-old Army multimedia specialist who was killed when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon; Campbell is his sister-in-law. Both were in Los Angeles to voice their conviction that the response to last year's attacks on New York and Washington shouldn't be more mangled bodies and grieving relatives.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And over at Indymedia -

9/10 Event in L.A. Features Peaceful Tomorrows
The Nation | 08.09.2002 20:19

"starring" Tom Hayden, Robert Scheer, Alfre Woodard, Ramona Ripston, Medea Benjamin, Maria Elena Durazo, Rev. George Regas and Rabbi Allen Freehling.

(Interesting links on that page)

Socialist birds of a feather flocking together........

96 posted on 03/05/2004 2:28:18 AM PST by DeBug=int13

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