Posted on Thu, Mar. 04, 2004
Bush ads anger some Sept. 11 families
By WILLIAM DOUGLAS
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush's new campaign ads drew a sharply negative reaction Thursday from families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and from a firefighters union that supports Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
The Bush campaign began broadcasting four ads on Thursday in 17 states that are expected to be battlegrounds in November. One of the ads shows the smoldering wreckage of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, with a flag flying in the rubble. Another ad shows firefighters carrying a flag-draped stretcher. The International Association of Fire Fighters, which is backing Kerry, denounced the ads and demanded that Bush pull them.
The ads brought several victims' relatives to tears and triggered angry charges that Bush was exploiting others' misery for political gain.
"Using my dead friends and my dead brother for political expediency is dead wrong," said Chris Burke, whose brother, Tom, died in the North Tower. "It's wrong, it's bad taste and an insult to the 3,000 people who died on Sept. 11."
White House and Bush campaign officials defended their use of the images, saying Sept. 11 is part of American history and a major moment of the Bush presidency. Bush's leadership in the aftermath of the attacks is the cornerstone of his re-election campaign.
The Bush campaign issued a statement from former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani - whose actions on Sept. 11 vaulted him to hero status - defending the images.
Bush's "leadership on that day is central to his record, and his continued leadership is critical to our ultimate success against world terrorism," the statement said.
Karen Hughes, a Bush campaign adviser and confidante to the president, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that the ad is a "tastefully done reminder of our shared experience and what we have all been through as a nation."
"It would be somewhat out of touch to ignore the reality of that day and how it forever changed our nation's policy," Hughes said. "... The race for president is now on, and it's important that we look at how the two candidates would approach the war against terror."
Firefighters saw it differently.
"I find it disgraceful and disgusting that they are going to use these images," said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the 265,000-member union. "They (the White House) have failed firefighters for the last two and a half years."
Kerry, who was resting at home in Boston, had no comment on the controversy.
Media and political analysts said the anger aroused by the imagery illustrates the danger in using an emotional event in a political campaign. While the images weren't gruesome, they can touch a raw nerve in those who lived through the attacks as well as those who had friends or family die.
"September 11 and the images thereof are going to cause controversy for whatever usage," said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's a highly contested bit of cultural territory. You're taking a huge national tragedy, and you're taking it to try to sell something."
In most of his speeches, Bush talks at length about Sept. 11 and the war on terrorism, seeking to portray himself as a steadfast leader in dangerous times.
"We saw war and grief on a quiet September morning. So we pursued terrorist enemies across the world," he said Thursday at a campaign fund-raiser in Santa Clara, Calif. "And the rest of them learned there's no cave or hole deep enough to hide from American justice."
Burke, whose brother died in the attacks, said tears welled in his eyes when he first watched the ad. He said he wouldn't have minded Bush using the imagery if the president hadn't obstructed an independent commission that's investigating the attacks.
Bush initially opposed formation of the bipartisan commission and balked when the commission asked that its May 27 deadline be extended by two months. With the deadline recently pushed back, the commission and the White House are now wrangling over the scope of interviews with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I find it hypocritical that he would use 9-11 images and then not cooperate with the commission," said Stephen Push, co-founder of Families of September 11, a support group. Push's wife, Lisa Raines, was aboard the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon.
"I hope this leads him to pull the ads. I voted for George W. Bush, as did a lot of 9-11 families," Push said. "He's alienating people who supported him."
Anthony Gardner, whose brother Harvey died in the World Trade Center, said the alienation runs deeper than the campaign ads. Gardner and others say the administration has been unresponsive to concerns raised by Sept. 11 families, ranging from their asking for help in ensuring that the "footprints" of the fallen towers - box beam column remnants - are historically preserved, to getting assurances that Ground Zero will not be used for political purposes during the Republican convention in New York.
"This is sacred ground and should not be used as a political backdrop," said Mary Fetchet, the director of Voices of September 11, another family support group.
Rori Patrise Smith, a Republican convention spokeswoman, said, "No events are planned at Ground Zero during the convention."
(Ron Hutcheson, traveling with Bush in California, contributed to this article.)
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