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...How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes?' . . . Clinton later told me [Klein goes on] that the House Republicans were as much the target of this speech as were the right wing militias...

...Bush "cynically made 9/11 the cornerstone of the Republican 2002 election strategy," said Terry Mc-Auliffe, as if the biggest event in several decades should not be discussed in campaigns...

...This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial," intoned Robert Byrd on the floor of the Senate...

...We are a long way from the land of political innocents," noted a March 10 editorial in the Wall Street Journal...

...As far as the eye could see, men in whites were standing at attention at the rails of a dozen Navy ships...

...Presidential politics is, at bottom, about making the most of your opportunities...

...As explained by Joe Klein in his book, The Natural, here is how Bill Clinton came back from the political dead: On the morning of April 19, 1995, the day after the press conference in which Clinton had been forced to defend his own relevance, a powerful truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 163 people...

...The president of the United States deliberately linked the opposite party to the perpetrators of a vile attack on American citizens, and climbed back to power on the backs of its victims...

...Bush did not benefit from September 11, but from his response to it, which was not inevitable or foreordained...

...The fuss over his ads comes from people eager for him to lose, for reasons having nothing to do with the ads themselves...

...Well, shows of restraint are rare...

...Rather brazenly, and with some success, Bush's opponents have manufactured controversy over a presidential campaign discussion of the central concern of our era...

...We've seen this sort of thing before...

...But the responses to them belong to Bush and to Roosevelt, who developed them under pressure and duress, with great stores of vision and will...

...the GOP pitched donors, for a bargain price, a pictorial triptych of W.'s 'defining moments,'" chirped Maureen Dowd the next day in the New York Times, as if on cue...

...The Democrats probably didn't mind...

...Something like this is true as well of the protesting family members of 9/11 victims, who turn out to be well connected to left-wing networks (see Matthew Continetti's report on page 24...

...And then, on May 5, he delivered a fighting commencement speech at Michigan State University: 'I say this to the militias and all others who believe that the greatest threat to freedom comes from the government instead of from those who would take away our freedom...

...But he was also reminding the country of the blow it had suffered, while directing attention to the war effort he commanded, which, though not without its mistakes and failures, had been a strategic success...

...The visit made for great photos of the president, bringing back not only the memory of December 7, but emphasizing his own role as commander in chief...

...Well, yes...

...Bush "handed around a fake turkey," fowl maven John Kerry complained...

...And if those opportunities involve the anguish of others...

...Has any president in all of American history been quite so unfeeling and cynical...

...How dare he appear in front of the troops, and worse yet, be cheered lustily...

...Of course, Bush's Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Baghdad was yet another cynical use of war...

...In May 2000 there was a media frenzy over the Million Mom March, organized by a "typical" housewife and mother who turned out to be a PR professional and liberal activist with ties to the Clintons...

...From the start, a cadre of Democrats, backed by a chorus of friends in the media, kept up a steady drumbeat of carping intended to deny George W. Bush any credit for his leadership in the war on terror...

...Since then, a campaign has unfolded to move it off limits, using the charge of obscene exploitation, of unseemly use of the dead...

...Think back to that May 2002 flap over the RNC's offer to donors of three photographs from Bush's first year in office, including one of the president on September 11...

...It is an affront to the Americans killed or wounded in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech"—as if a commander should not welcome and address the troops...

...their demolished children were carried out of the ruin of the building's day care enter...

...Stepping out from his limo, wearing his leather flying jacket, MacArthur acknowledged the tumultuous applause...

...George W. Bush is under attack for reasons of naked partisanship...

...The pattern of attacks accelerated on the news in January 2003 that the Republican convention would be held in New York, and hit new heights when the president made a surprise visit to Baghdad over the Thanksgiving holiday, where he committed the gross indiscretion of dishing out food to the Noemie Emery is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...There was no rubble, no bullhorn, no victims, no sign of smoke, much less of fire, not a policeman or a fireman in sight...

...The Democrats should understand this well, as it was certainly the case with their last successful president...

...Bush is a piker compared with FDR when it comes to wrapping himself in the mantle of commander in chief," Broder continued...

...They threw a fit in May 2002, when an innocuous photo showing Bush on Air Force One on September 11 was included in a set of three offered to Republican donors...

...The only American president since Abraham Lincoln to run for reelection in wartime was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, after another surprise attack on American soil three years beforehand had set off another big war...

...He had every right to do so, as it was his achievement, and it also was the most important part of his job...

...Bush's selling of that third photo, taken on September 11, sets a new, disgusting low in political fund-raising," said liberal pundit Bill Press, suggesting an epic naivete on his part...

...Dazed and bleeding federal employees were seen suffering on the streets of Oklahoma City...

...This is nonsense...

...Most of the people who complain the loudest about Bush also believe he benefited unfairly from the events of September 11, that he lucked into a wave of patriotic emotion he did not inspire, and did nothing at all to deserve...

...You chose New York City . . . specifically to exploit 9/11," charged a liberal website, ignoring the fact that the city had courted both parties...

...Incredibly disrespectful to the families of the thousands of Americans who lost their lives just hours before this photo was taken," asserted Terry McAuliffe, without explaining just why...

...How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on earth live in a tyranny...

...When the country really needed a president, he was there, his words and his actions serving as the rallying point for a shaken nation," noted David Broder in his March 11 Washington Post column...

...The Gingrich Movement had been built on government bashing in the name of patriotism...

...Or, perhaps, to be fair, since some weeks later, when it became clear that George W. Bush's response to the attacks would be an electoral plus...

...The emphasis was not on the attack, but on Bush doing his job...

...This has been done, done before, and done for all the same reasons: Democrats have been steadily working to take September 11, its cause, effect, and aftermath, off the table of election-year politics since . . . oh, possibly . . . September 12...

...After the meetings, FDR toured the island, inspecting training grounds, shipyards, and hospitals, paying special attention to the amputee veterans, with whom he identified because of his paralyzed legs...

...Last week, some even objected to the president's presence at a groundbreaking ceremony for the dead of September 11—to which Bush had been invited...

...Let's see—an American president in a season of war should not make use of pictures in wartime, mention the war in a midterm election, visit an aircraft carrier, visit the troops in the field, mention the war while running for office, go to Ground Zero, go to New York at all, or draw attention in any way to his role as commander in chief...

...After the convention, he headed straight for Pearl Harbor, and it was there he kicked off his campaign, meeting conspicuously on the destroyer Baltimore with the two chief architects of the Pacific war...

...Roosevelt did not hold his convention in Hawaii (which at that time was not yet a state of the Union, and was a bit difficult to travel to), but he did the next best thing...

...troops...

...Think back, if you will, to flap number two—the decision to hold the Republican National Convention in New York City...

...While most pictures are worth a thousand words, a photo that seeks to capitalize on one of the most tragic moments in our nation's history is worth only one—disgraceful," said Al Gore, Bush's embittered ex-rival, who had twice used the pain and suffering of his nearest relatives to plead his own case for high office...

...September 11, 2001, like December 7, 1941, was a national disaster that belongs to all people...

...Whoopee...

...Bush every time he discusses terrorism from now until the election...

...All of this is gross, crass, coarse, and highly insensitive...

...FDR-haters certainly thought so...

...It was taken on Air Force One, with the president looking out the window as he talked on the phone to the vice president...

...Indeed, if there is exploitation going on, it is on the part of those who willfully exploit the immense sympathy the American people have for the terrorists' victims and their survivors for partisan purposes...

...A rousing cheer went up as the gangplank was lowered to receive Admiral Nimitz and some fifty high ranking officials...

...A tremendous crowd was gathered at the pier when the President's cruiser pulled in," writes Doris Kearns Goodwin...

...What we have, instead, are politically motivated activists standing willingly as a front organization for the Democratic party...

...On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes struck the U.S fleet at Pearl Harbor, killing around 3,000 Americans...

...So was FDR "exploiting" the attack and its victims...

...Other Democrats found fault with Bush's appearance on the deck of the Lincoln, when formal hostilities ceased in Iraq...

...If you accept President Bush's premise that this nation is at war with terrorism, then you have to applaud the restraint that his campaign has shown so far...

...Did the people of Oklahoma (a red state, after all) like the fact that their president made use of their grief to enhance his own interests...

...BY NOEMIE EMERY LOOKING BACK, there is nothing surprising about the carefully ./plotted spasms of outrage at the reference, in a Bush campaign ad, to the terrorist attacks of September 11 through the fleeting shot of a flag-covered stretcher, and the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center in downtown New York...

...They've traded on the press's reluctance to question their motives, hoping for a free run to impugn Mr...

...Soon, we will no doubt hear denunciations of any mention of the president's constitutional duties as commander in chief...

...the Republicans certainly did...

...Clinton delivered a moving eulogy at a prayer service commemorating the victims, four days after the bombing...

...The president now had not only a tactical strategy . . . but also an intellectual rationale for his campaign against the Republican revolution, and a passion for pursuing it...

...In January 2002, when Karl Rove made the obvious point that the president's handling of terrorism would be a plus in the elections that fall—"We can go to the country on this issue, because they trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might"— Democrats denounced this as "shameful...

...infomercial...

...With all the class of a 1:30 a.m...