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Bush911.jpgAs someone who was there, who was injured, who still cannot remember what happened from the time the first building fell until I landed in a hospital in New Jersey, and who is still being treated for PTSD, I am beyond disgusted by the Bush administration’s use of 911 images in a campaign ad. But I am not surprised.
Do you remember the TV coverage right after the disaster? There was Bush, parading around with his bullhorn, suddenly standing awkwardly, looking like an idiot, with his arm around a fireman who looked like he wanted to be standing anywhere but next to Bush. And Bush was saying “We’re gonna get the folks who did this,” when suddenly CNN interrupted his photo op to turn to breaking news: Mayor Rudy Guiliani giving an update on what was really going on.
One of two 911-based ads is entitled “Safer, Stronger,” and features a one-second shot of firefighters removing the flag-draped remains of a victim from the still burning debris.
Do you feel safer? I don’t. Are your friends and family fully employed? Mine aren’t. Do you have adequate, affordable health insurance? I don’t. Those are the issues I want addressed in the campaign. Along with national security of course.
I can only hope that in a Friendster-like equasion the millions of people whose lives were affected by 911, and who are against the war in Iraq will each tell six friends who will tell their friends that we need to vote out the Bush administration and not let them steal another election.
At the disaster, as now, Bush was a poseur. An interloper. A shameless publicity monger trying to look like a leader. He didn’t look like a leader on 911, and he sure doesn’t look like one now. He wants to be recognized as a hero. Now: as the news comes out that the Whitehouse planned the Iraq War from day one. That they knew about the potential for disaster and they did nothing except use it as an excuse to start stripping away our civil liberties.
This 911-based ad is only the first volley. The depths to which this campaign will sink are hard to imagine. I can only hope that Kerry will keep his campaign on the issues, the facts and the higher moral ground. Kerry says we’ve yet to see the fire in his belly. Bring it on John Kerry, bring it on. Please.