Broder on Bush and Roosevelt
He mitigates his conclusion in his closing paragraphs by asserting
If you accept President Bush's premise that this nation is at war with terrorism, then you have to applaud the restraint his campaign has shown so far in exploiting the attack that began that war.Far better than criticizing his ads, ask why Bush is not calling on comfortable Americans to make any sacrifices for the war effort and why he refuses to raise the revenue to pay for what he calls a life-and-death struggle.
Those are the legitimate issues.
I think there is something to be said for both arguments, though I am going to focus mainly on the first. I am not certain how far I would push an analogy between the current political environment and that of 1944, first of all. Second, however, Democrats and liberals simply need to deal with it. Is there something unseemly in using images of 9-11 for partisan purposes? Yes. Of course there is. But this is politics. Some may say that there is something unseemly in using veteran's status, an attractive family, or inrodinate wealth to run for the presidency also. But much as me might all wish that politics could be simply struggles about ideas, it is not.
Furthermore, this is yet another debate in the political dialogue where the two sides have coalesced around an issue that in and of itself is not inherently ideological. In other words, there is no reason for Republicans to rally around the idea of the President appropriating 9-11 in his ads, or Democrats to rally against the idea any more than there were logical ideological reasons for the two sides to have coalesced around the issues in the aftermath of the 2000 election as they did. I have a sneaking suspicion that if President Gore were running for reelection and using the same sorts of ads (and is anyone going to argue with a straight face that he would not be doing so?) Republicans would be up in arms and Democrats mounting the defenses over the exact same issue, just as had the tables been turned in November 2000 both sides would have argued precisely the same as what the other side did argue.
In other words, maybe it is time to stop with the mock outrage, or at least the contrived outrage, that all adds up to a noisome hypocrisy. I know it comes as a shock to people, but both Kerry and Bush are going to try to win this election, and they are probably going to push the envelope of what the other side will call good taste. If we know this, maybe, just maybe, we can reduce the moral otrage that both sides manage to muster up at the drop of a hat. Somehow, however, I doubt that this will happen.