What If Past Wars Were Off Limits in Campaigns?
By Doug Patton
March 8, 2004
Last week, the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign unveiled a 30-second television commercial touting the leadership of the president in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. It depicted a portion of the outer wall at ground zero after the collapse of the World Trade Center, along with a very brief image of a flag-draped casket.
A carefully orchestrated parade of partisan Democrats, each of whom had lost loved ones at the World Trade Center, came forth with identical talking points to express their indignation that anyone would dare to exploit their loss for political gain. This feigned outrage was then echoed by every Democrat operative across the country and dutifully reported by their sycophants in the national media.
So great was the hysterical overreaction on the Left, that anyone who had not actually seen the commercial would have believed that the Bush-Cheney campaign must be using gory 9/11 images of mangled bodies on network television in order to convince the public to re-elect the president to another four-year term.
Imagine for a moment that during Abraham Lincoln's contentious 1864 re-election campaign, Democrat George McClellan had rounded up a dozen widows whose husbands had died at Gettysburg and paraded them across the country suggesting that it was somehow insensitive for Lincoln to remind voters that he had just led the Union through four years of war. Imagine further that these widows were all Democrats.
Picture FDR being told by Republican Thomas Dewey in 1944 that because a handful of Republican mothers who lost sons at Pearl Harbor were offended by any mention of that attack, the president could not make reference to it during his re-election campaign.
In the last six months, we have heard from the president's critics that he is either a liar who took the nation to war knowing that there were no WMDs, or that he is an incompetent who took the nation to war not knowing that there were no WMDs.
Before his head exploded in Iowa and his campaign melted down before our eyes on national television, the Dems former frontrunner, Howard Dean, had accused Mr. Bush of treason by suggesting that the president took the nation to war to cover up the fact that he knew about 9/11 in advance and did nothing to prevent it.
George W. Bush has been called a gang leader, a puppet, an idiot and a cowboy. He has been accused of desertion from the Air National Guard and vilified for landing on an aircraft carrier to greet troops who had done their duty. Ted Kennedy said on the floor of the United States Senate that the war in Iraq was a plan hatched by the president in Texas. Presumptive Democrat nominee John Kerry has called Bush "a miserable failure" and mocked him repeatedly on the campaign trail with cliches such as, "Like father, like son...four years and you're done!"
All this without so much as a single response from the White House.
Now, after three years as president, most of it at war, the president's opponents say he has no right to even mention September 11, 2001. The audacity of these people is astounding.
The Bush campaign's response to this phony hand wringing should be to run the footage of the president on September 14, 2001, standing atop the still smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center, one arm around that tearful firefighter, the other holding a bullhorn. Do you remember what he said? In response to the cheers of those working at Ground Zero, he told them, "I hear you, America hears you and very soon the people who knocked down these buildings are going to hear from all of us!"
Amen, Mr. President.
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor for federal, state and local candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country, and on selected Internet web sites, including www.GOPUSA.com, where he serves as the Nebraska Editor. He also writes for Talon News Service (www.TalonNews.com). Readers can e-mail him at Doug.Patton@GOPUSA.com.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.