9/11 Political Ads

Was or is Bush wrong to use these ads to further himself in the election, to build up any of his character that has been torn down? My personal take is that there is no way that Bush or any other politician for that matter should be using ads of this type, so whats everyone elses take on this?

www.cnn.com...

I just got this via email and it is a bit long, but quite funny.

March 4, 2004
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

You've got to admire the Bush re-election ads being rolled
out today. With up to $60 million to spend by convention
time, the campaign is plotting the most expensive political
advertising seduction in history, and you can see the money
on the screen.

In scary/gauzy images, the president does his best to shift
the blame, take the credit and transmit concern about
regular folks - waitresses, welders, firefighters, black
children, black seniors, middle-class families - when he
really spends more time helping his fat-cat corporate
friends.

Mr. Bush continues to imply that we should be scared
because we're not safe, so we need to keep him to protect
our national security. Which seems like a weird
contradiction. If he's so good at protecting us, why aren't
we safe?

The president doesn't hesitate to exploit 9/11 in his ads,
even as he tries to keep 9/11 orphans and widows in the
dark about what really happened.

Mr. Bush's ad flashes a shot of firefighters removing some
flag-draped remains of a victim from the wreckage at ground
zero even as he prohibits the filming of flag-draped
remains of soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
You might call the Bush ads, an homage to Ronald Reagan's
famous ads, "Mourning in America."

Nothing like hypocrisy with high production values.

I'm
assuming that the second phase of the ad blitz will
highlight the man with the plan: Dick Cheney. The Cheney
ads could appeal to the base, featuring rich white men in
the back seats of limos, showing how hard it is to make the
tough decisions for you.

Consider the possibilities:

ON THE SCREEN�The spot lingers on a shot of the vice
president's office door, closed and padlocked.

THE SCRIPT:�"Big enough to tell you to butt out. Sensitive
enough to know that special interests are truly special."

ON THE SCREEN�The spot opens with a tightly focused shot of
a headless pheasant, then dissolves into a shot of a big
Dick Cheney putting a miniature Antonin Scalia into the
pocket of his Elmer Fudd hunting jacket.

THE SCRIPT�"Man enough to hunt with all the big dogs."

ON
THE SCREEN�The spot opens with Mr. Cheney checking his
mailbox on Massachusetts Avenue to see whether he's
received his annual deferred compensation check for
$150,000 from Halliburton.

THE SCRIPT�"Bighearted enough to forgive and forget
Halliburton's pesky overcharges in Iraq for oil, and food
for American troops."

ON THE SCREEN�A picture of Mr. Cheney beaming at his
family.

THE SCRIPT�"Strong enough to put his base above his
daughter and support a constitutional amendment against gay
marriage."

ON THE SCREEN�A close-up of Mr. Cheney accepting a huge
N.R.A. check in his spider hole.

THE SCRIPT�"Protective enough to safeguard the firearms
industry from liberal potshots."

ON THE SCREEN�While the "Pink Panther" music plays, we see
a cartoon of the vice president, dressed in an Inspector
Clouseau trenchcoat and a false mustache, wandering the
desert with a spyglass.

THE SCRIPT�"Steely enough to ignore the administration's
own intelligence on the absence of W.M.D. and an Al Qaeda
connection to Saddam. Farsighted enough to know that one of
these decades, the rocks and trash that Iraqis are throwing
at American forces will be replaced by flowers and palm
fronds."

ON THE SCREEN�A doctored photo of John Kerry, his war
medals airbrushed out, canoodling with Jane Fonda at an
antiwar rally.

THE SCRIPT�"After getting four student deferments himself
during Vietnam so he could attend to `other priorities,'
he's still gritty enough to paint John Kerry as a spineless
wimp on Vietnam and Iraq."

ON THE SCREEN�A shot of Mr. Cheney driving the Nascar
Viagra race car.

THE SCRIPT�"Audacious enough to shred the American
Constitution, even while he imposes one on Iraq."

Instead of speaking at the end to say he approved the
message, as Mr. Bush does in his, Mr. Cheney comes on at
the end of his spots with a paper bag over his head and
says, "It's none of your beeswax who approved this
message." Except in one, where a rotund man comes on and
says, "I am Ahmad Chalabi, and I approved this message."��

Originally posted by tracer
Was or is Bush wrong to use these ads to further himself in the election, to build up any of his character that has been torn down? My personal take is that there is no way that Bush or any other politician for that matter should be using ads of this type, so whats everyone elses take on this?

www.cnn.com...

This is nothing but serious exploitation by appealing to nationalistic aims. We all know the U.S. Government had something to with Sept. 11/2001, and they're still trying to fool the people.

Originally posted by IMMORTAL

Originally posted by tracer
Was or is Bush wrong to use these ads to further himself in the election, to build up any of his character that has been torn down? My personal take is that there is no way that Bush or any other politician for that matter should be using ads of this type, so whats everyone elses take on this?

www.cnn.com...

This is nothing but serious exploitation by appealing to nationalistic aims. We all know the U.S. Government had something to with Sept. 11/2001, and they're still trying to fool the people.

I agree, wholeheartedly.

It's disgusting and it dishonors the memories of those who died that day. Exploitation. That's pretty pathetic.