What kills me is that the press went gleefully unawares. You don't have to be a cynic to be suspicious that the very morning the ads aired, there were these victims being paraded on TV. They were waiting to pounce on this and the Bushes knew it. That's why the 9/11 reference was so fleeting.
Rush knew it, too. He chose to address it in a "gee whiz" sort of way.