9/11 belongs in debate as issue, not maneuver
Doug MacEachern
Republic columnist
Mar. 7, 2004 12:00 AM
Objecting to TV ads by the Bush re-election campaign, one woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center attack told the New York Daily News on Thursday that the ads were in poor taste.
"After 3,000 people were murdered on his watch," she said, adding that running such ads takes a lot of audacity.
Fair enough. Taken at face value, no one could ever dispute the heartfelt opinions of those who lost their loved ones to the most heinous attack on American civilians ever.
But, then, another twin towers attack survivor was interviewed Friday on NBC's Today Show. She, too, spoke emotionally about the inappropriateness of the ads. She, too, referenced the 3,000 people killed "on his watch."
Other language used by other victims' survivors began sounding strangely, oddly similar. Two women both referenced the fact that Bush had been reading to children when the attacks occurred. Other similarities, other themes, seemed repeated in the words of people objecting to the Bush ads.
Now, heaven help anyone who dares suggest such people are not welcome to their opinions - are not due an opinion. Whatever they have to say - whether coached or not, whether prepared as a statement in conjunction with other survivors or not - is ground their personal tragedies give them free rein to tread.
But then there are the coaches themselves. That is another matter.
If Democratic operatives are in fact manipulating the reactions of Sept. 11 survivors to the Bush campaign ads, then all I can say is that the predictions of people like John McCain - that this coming 2004 presidential election may be the dirtiest in history - already are coming to pass. It would be craven.
Residents of New York have come to view the land once occupied by the World Trade Center religiously. They have taken possession of it as Catholics have taken ownership of Lourdes, France. So when the sister of a computer programmer who died in the North Tower bitterly concluded "this is a political party stepping on my brother's grave," no one dares claim such a statement is anything but heartfelt.
But it is far from fair or reasonable.
The ads launched by the Bush campaign are, by almost any measure, inoffensive and upbeat. Nevertheless, nobody should be surprised that partisan Democrats were spring-loaded to jump on Bush for any campaign allusions to Sept. 11.
But they cannot escape the fact that Bush is the leader of a nation that has been at war since that day and his record is defined by actions he has taken since that day.
Whether Bush's record is judged poorly, as many certainly have and will, or creditably, the fact remains that Bush was one type of leader on Sept. 10, and an entirely different type on Sept. 11. On Sept. 10, the majority of Americans would have expected Bush to hold to his campaign vow to withdraw the United States from its wide spread of involvement beyond our shores. As of Sept. 11, we were at war with a foreign enemy. And Bush was a war president. Just like Democratic icon Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt did not merely insert images of Pearl Harbor into his re-election campaign of 1944 against Tom Dewey, he literally made it his campaign theme. The words "Pearl Harbor" and its images emblazoned Roosevelt campaign buttons and posters. Like Bush, he was the nation's war president, and he did not shy away from letting prospective voters know that by changing administrations in the middle of a war, they might threaten the war's outcome.
Was it crass? Hardly. The war was part of Roosevelt's record. Come Election Day, voters had the opportunity to express their displeasure with the man who had dragged them into the "European" war, or they could celebrate the job he'd done.
If surviving families of Sept. 11 victims wish to see the coming campaign through their chosen lens, that is their right.
But cold-eyed political strategists have no such right to deny anyone the issues - and, yes, images - of the coming debate.
Reach MacEachern at doug.maceachern@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8883.
