Posted on 03/18/2002 3:28:50 AM PST by kattracks
President Bush personally selected a controversial photo of three white firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero for a U.S. postage stamp commemorating the 9/11 attacks, according to the congressman who introduced legislation proposing a stamp to memorialize the attacks last fall.
"The interesting thing here is [the Postal Service] sent about four or five designs over to the White House," revealed Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., during an interview Sunday with WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg.
"And the president, I think, picked this one. He picked the actual photograph - which is unusual, because we don't put live people on stamps," Ackerman said.
The much-celebrated photograph of firemen George Johnson, Dan McWilliams and Billy Eisengrein raising Old Glory amidst the rubble just hours after the attacks became embroiled in controversy in January after NewsMax.com revealed rampant discontent within the New York City Fire Department over an earlier plan to portray the event with a racially altered statue of the three men.
The ensuing firestorm of public protest forced cancellation of the planned statue, with the Postal Service's selection two months later of the actual flag-raising photo widely viewed as a victory for historical accuracy over political correctness.
But it was not known until Sunday that Bush himself, and not the Postal Service, made the final decision on the stamp. Its unveiling took place Monday at the White House, with the president posing for pictures next to Eisengrein, McWilliams and Johnson inside the Oval Office.
The photographer who snapped the now world-famous shot, Thomas Franklin of The Record of North Jersey newspaper, was also on hand for the unveiling.
Playing off the brouhaha surrounding the canceled statue, Ackerman joked, "[The ceremony] was wonderful. Nobody showed up in blackface or turned into somebody else. They were who they started out that morning [as]."
The price of the 9/11 stamp will be 45 cents - 11 extra cents over normal cost - with most of the additional cost going directly to help the widows and children of the first firefighters lost in the 9/11 attacks, Ackerman said.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
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Funds raised in connection with sales of the stamp, net of the Postal Service's reasonable costs, are to be transferred to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The stamp is expected to be available in post offices nationwide starting in late spring.
The petition regarding keeping officials in the City of New York from doing so proves that there are many many of our fellow citizens who feel the same.
I don't think it's about the three living firefighters. It's the flag and all the dead that are under their feet that are being honored.
Double that!!! Kudos from me, too, Mr. President!
Great post goldstategop.
You forgot the handicapped guy in the wheelchair.
There is nothing controversial about it, except what the Liberals want to make of it.
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