LOOKING BACK, there is nothing surprising about the carefully plotted spasms of outrage at the reference, in a Bush campaign ad, to the terrorist attacks of September 11 through the fleeting shot of a flag-covered stretcher, and the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center in downtown New York. This has been done, done before, and done for all the same reasons: Democrats have been steadily working to take September 11, its cause, effect, and aftermath, off the table of election-year politics since . . . oh, possibly . . .
September 12. Or, perhaps, to be fair, since some weeks later, when it became clear that George W. Bush's response to the attacks would be an electoral plus. Since then, a campaign has unfolded to move it off limits, using the charge of obscene exploitation, of unseemly use of the dead. In January 2002, when Karl Rove made the obvious point that the president's handling of terrorism would be a plus in the elections that fall--"We can go to the country on this issue, because they trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might"--Democrats denounced this as "shameful." They threw a fit in May 2002, when an innocuous photo showing Bush on Air Force One on September 11 was included in a set of three offered to Republican donors. The pattern of attacks accelerated on the news in January 2003 that the Republican convention would be held in New York, and hit new
heights when the president made a surprise visit to Baghdad over the Thanksgiving holiday, where he committed the gross indiscretion of dishing out food to the troops. Last week, some even objected to the president's presence at a ground-breaking ceremony for the dead of September 11--to which Bush had been invited. Rather brazenly, and with some success, Bush's opponents have manufactured controversy over a presidential campaign discussion of the central concern of our era. Soon, we will no doubt hear denunciations of any mention of the president's constitutional duties as commander in chief.
From the start, a cadre of Democrats, backed by a chorus of friends in the media, kept up a steady drumbeat of carping intended to deny George W. Bush any credit for his leadership in the war on terror. Think back to that May 2002 flap over the RNC's offer to donors of three photographs from Bush's first year in office, including one of the president on September 11. It was taken on Air Force One, with the president looking out the window as he talked on the phone to the vice president. There was no rubble, no bullhorn, no victims, no sign of smoke, much less of fire, not a policeman or a fireman in sight. The emphasis was not on the attack, but on Bush doing his job.
"While most pictures are worth a thousand words, a photo that seeks to capitalize on one of the most tragic moments in our nation's history is worth only one--disgraceful," said Al Gore, Bush's embittered ex-rival, who had twice used the pain and suffering of his nearest relatives to plead his own case for high office. "Incredibly disrespectful to the families of the thousands of Americans who lost their lives just hours before this photo was taken," asserted Terry McAuliffe, without explaining just why. "With all the class of a 1:30 A.M. infomercial...the GOP pitched donors, for a bargain price, a pictorial triptych of W.'s 'defining moments,'" chirped Maureen Dowd the next day in the New York Times, as if on cue. "Bush's selling of that third photo, taken on September 11, sets a new, disgusting low in political fund-raising," said liberal pundit Bill Press, suggesting an epic naiveté on his part.
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