9/11 happened to all of us
Debra Burlingame is a life-long Democrat whose brother was a pilot on one of the doomed jets that flew into the World Trade Center. In the Wall Street Journal today, she takes issue with some of the "9/11 families" who have criticized Bush's recent campaign ads. It's worthwhile to read the whole thing, but here is my favorite paragraph:
The images of Ground Zero, the Pentagon and Shanksville have been plastered over coffee mugs, T-shirts, placemats, book covers and postage stamps, all without a peep from many of these family members. I suspect that the real outrage over the ads has more to do with context than content. It's not the pictures that disturb them so much as the person who is using them. This is demonstrated in their affiliation with Moveon.org, a rabidly anti-Bush group that sponsored a rally they held last Friday calling for the president to pull his ads off the air. But by disingenuously declaring themselves "non-partisan" and insisting that it is a matter of "taste," they retain a powerful weapon that they have learned to exploit to their advantage. They are "9/11 family members" and therefore enjoy the cloak of deference that has been graciously conferred upon them by the public, politicians and, most significantly, the media.