Monday, March 08, 2004

Using Tragedy in Politics
It will be a while before I forgive James Carville for his savaging of Dean (and Begala will never get off my list), but he did have the quote of the day, on Meet the Press, putting into context the Bush-Rove decision to use images from the World Trade Center tragedy in political ads:

"I would be the first person to say the president did a fine job after September 11th. I also find it interesting--and I did some preliminary research on this, more needs to be done. I don't think President Roosevelt ever used Pearl Harbor in the '44 campaign. I know President Clinton did not use the Oklahoma City bombings in the 1996 campaign. I think what you have here is the question of the president's got nowhere else to go. So you're going to see more and more of this. I think we ought to just stipulate, Mr. President, you did a fine job in the wake of September 11th. We've got other things we need to talk about right now..."

What was that line they used in 2000, "bringing honor and dignity back to the White House?" I'm starting to think Rove's not such a brilliant guy after all.

{UPDATE: Speaking of using tragedy in politics, JonBenet's dad wants to run for office.}

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