Won't Get Fooled Again

Here's my take on the criticism about Bush's use of 9/11 imagery in his ads, and why I think it is critical to maintain that criticism.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Democrats, including the most powerful Democrat at the time, Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, rightfully rallied around the President and supported him unconditionally as he planned the U.S. response to Al-Qaida. They did not discuss the President's unbelievably shaky response in the initial hours and days after the attack (does anyone else remember the President holding a televised conference call with Pataki and Giuliani on September 12 or September 13 where a clearly overwhelmed Bush just kept repeating the same rote phrases like a mantra, such as "this is a different kind of war. They understand that it's a different kind of war. It's a different kind of war. What you need to understand is that it's a different kind of war." ) Essentially, politics went to the wayside as we acted as one America and supported the President, uncritically, as he attacked the Taliban.

Then, once the Democrats had the temerity to criticize the President again, once the smoke had subsided, Republicans (and, yes, Karen Hughes, who today defended Bush's use of 9/11 in his ads) accused the Democrats of politicizing 9/11. Any criticism of the President about the war on terror was off limits. Republicans kept repeating that Bush was a strong, decisive and popular leader enough that it became the conventional wisdom, without any counter or oppositon. After 9/11, Republicans even chose New York as their convention site, but assured a slightly skeptical public that it would not politicize the tragedy for political gain. They maintained that the Democrats who attacked the President were unpatriotic. Criticism of Bush's leadership became off limits and his handling of the war on terror was never cross-examined.

And Democrats, cowered, backed off again and again, until the President was able to pound them with a mallet in the 2002 election. Then Democrats began to realize they had been snookered, and that all the support they had provided the President in the name of America was being used for political gain by Rove, Cheney and Co. Out of this realization the rise of Howard Dean was born and the expression of Democratic anger and frustration over being had.

Democrats finally got their groove back and began to fight back, and finally had to guts to say to the American public that the emperor has no clothes. And, unlike the past two years, people finally began to realize that he didn't. The lies and exaggerations about WMDs, the budget deficit, the Plame affair. Suddenly things didn't look so good for the President.

So that's where the Republicans stand now and that's why 9/11 is so very very important to them in their ads. It's the one unblemished thing that they have been entirely able to only tell their side of the story. (Why do you think that they've stymied the 9/11 Commission so much?) They were able to raise a shaky, illegitimate President up by using his response to 9/11, and the Democrats, since they didn't challenge him at the time, will be hard pressed to do so now. So Karen Hughes and Karl Rove are now taking the huge leap, after declaring 9/11 to be off limits for politics, to essentially declare that it was only off limits for Democrats who criticized the President back then. Since there was no criticism of the President, they say, it is central to who he is as President, and thus must be shown to explain his Presidency.

But Democrats shouldn't let themselves get snookered again. This is a test. The Republicans are trying to push the envelope and see how far they can take it. I'm not suggesting that these ads are particularly over the top, but it is the precedent. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. If this is okay, then maybe an ad with the speech at Ground Zero with the firefighter is okay, and on and on. And imagine what would happen at the convention in New York. Once we agree with Karen Hughes and others that it is perfectly acceptable for the President to capitalize politically on the death of 3,000 innocent Americans, then what is to stop them from having Bush go to Ground Zero, or to even give his acceptance speech there?

This is the true slippery slope and Democrats need to cut it off right now. The families of 9/11 victims have spoken out about this, and they are right. This day should go beyond politics, just as the Republicans said back then. Let Bush make his case as a leader, but leave the images of the World Trade Center and those who died on that day out of it.
- posted by Joshua @ 8:10 PM