Note to readers: The correct URL for the Jewish Current Issues blog discussed in last week’s column is: www.rrichman.blogspot.com
The Democrats and their lapdogs in the news media really do expect George W. Bush to campaign for reelection with one hand – possibly both hands – tied behind his back. Witness the largely media-manufactured outrage over the Bush ads that dared make reference to 9/11 – only, after all, a watershed in American history and the signature event of the Bush presidency.
A New York Sun editorial captured perfectly the absurdity of John Kerry and his supporters crying foul over the use of 9/11 imagery: “No sooner did President Bush begin running his new campaign ads than the Democrats started erupting in expressions of shock and disgust that the ads are about something that matters….. The Democrats would have us believe that footage of Mr. Kerry fighting in Vietnam more than 30 years ago is relevant and appropriate – but footage of the defining moment in American life these past three years is out of bounds.”
The editorial concluded with a deliciously wicked kick at Kerry’s manhood: “Maybe it’s time to amend Mr. Kerry’s now famous “Bring It On” rallying cry, meant to welcome a debate on national security between him and Mr. Bush, to “Bring it on, and watch me whine.?”
If at all possible, the behavior of the media was considerably more troubling than anything said by any openly partisan Democrat.
“The Bush ads,” wrote the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell, “were positive, promotional, piano-plunking, the type that usually bore reporters to death. But this time, they were quickly slammed by the press. The Democrats thought they had an angle to trip up the Bush campaign, and they pushed it. Say, didn’t those ads flash about a second of pictures of September 11? Well, yes, and so what? After being attacked unmercifully by the left for his handling of the war on terrorism before and after 9/11, shouldn’t the president be allowed to defend him self?”
Bozell also touched on how the media shamefully spot lighted a handful of Bush critics who happen to be relatives of 9/11 victims – while failing to disclose the telling detail that some of the more outspoken among them are “members of a little radical conclave called “September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,” founded by about 80 relatives of the more than 3,000 victims.”
The Washington Post, Bozell noted, “called them ‘nonpartisan,’ which is laughable. They are very active lobbyists of the far left. See their website at peacefultomorrows.org. Last year, they were hosting protest marches to condemn “the illegal, immoral, and unjustified U.S.-led military action in Iraq.” They opposed the war uprooting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and complained that 9/11 was “used to justify the deaths of thousands of Afghan men, women and children.” Their members give speeches across the country with titles including “Exploiting 9/11 for Empire Building.” ”
Bozell was one of several observers to point out that not only does “Peaceful Tomorrows” have a radical agenda, but that, in the words of WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, it’s “a project of the Tides Center, one of the pet causes of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira Heinz Endowment, both directed by Mrs. Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.”
The group, wrote Farah, “delivered up to the New York Daily News opponents to attack President Bush’s reelection campaign ads. None of the critics of the ads in that original story were identified as members of Peaceful Tomorrows.”
It was the Daily News story, Farah continued, that “touched off a national media firestorm. By Thursday night, the Peaceful Tomorrows activists were on every national television news show, often identified simply as relatives of the victims of the September 11 attack rather than members of an activist organization, supported with tax-exempt Heinz funds, with a specifically anti-Bush agenda.”