Bush and funerals and hugs--Defense 4

Defense 4: Blame it on Clinton.

We all knew that this had to come up somehow. After all, the Republicans' all-time favorite game is "Blame it on Clinton." Why should this issue be any different?

Before discussing Defense 4 further, I just have to say that all you Republicans need to seek professional help regarding this obsession with Clinton. Grab a clue--Clinton is gone, and blaming Clinton does not in any way explain or justify Bush's conduct. Try to focus on the guy who's in office now.

So how is Clinton being blamed for this? Well, as reported by Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times,

Some close to the president say another reason he has not expressed more public sympathy for individual soldiers killed in Iraq is his determination to let families have their privacy. He was offended, his friends say, by what he saw at times as President Bill Clinton's exploitation of private grief for political gain.

So Bush will not attend any funerals or memorials because Clinton was crassly politicizing an event. This became somewhat of a theme for right wingers, as illustrated by this November 11, 2003, column by Carl Limbacher of NewsMax.com:

The pundit class' sensitivity to the issue of whether a president is attending enough military funerals is a relatively new phenomenon. Though casualty rates during the Clinton years never approached the levels now being sustained in Iraq, combat deaths weren't exactly unheard of.

They included 18 U.S. Army Rangers killed in Somalia in 1993, 19 U.S. airmen killed in the 1996 Khobar Towers barracks bombing, four soldiers dead in Haiti [suicides, the White House insisted] and 17 Navy men and women killed in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

Yet, in a comprehensive review of reports from 1993 to 2001, we couldn't find a single instance of Mr. Clinton attending any military funeral anywhere.

It's not that the ex-president was funeral-averse. In fact, his notorious "I feel your pain" style earned him the moniker of "Mourner in Chief" in some quarters, especially after his performance at the Oklahoma City bombing memorial service in 1995.

And while we could find no record of Clinton attending funerals of the soldiers he sent into harm's way, he never seemed to miss a funeral for one of his fund-raisers - attending services for big-bucks donor Larry Lawrence and even speaking at the funeral of the father of mega fund-raiser-turned-DNC chief Terry McAuliffe.

This particular version of "blame it on Clinton" is particularly pathetic. From the foregoing, there are three complaints about Clinton. These complaints are the section headings below (with a quick response in parentheses).

Clinton never attended a military funeral (but he did attend a memorial).

Limbacher specifically mentioned that Clinton never attended the military funerals for any of the victims of the USS Cole attack. That is true, but Limbacher ignores the fact that Clinton did attend a memorial service for them. Maybe if Limbacher had bothered to read the History News Network article mentioned in connection with Defense 1--which was published the day before his column--he would have written something different. I pretty much doubt it. In any event, the point is that Clinton did attend a memorial service for military personnel who died in the line of duty. George W. Bush has not.

Clinton publicly exploited a terrorist attack for political gain (and so has Bush).

Limbacher also mentioned the memorial service for the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. I guess he is complaining about Clinton using death from a terrorist attack for political purposes. When Limbacher wrote his column, maybe he had a valid point, but now the hypocrisy of this is simply astounding. In March of this year, the Bush campaign rolled out its first three national TV ads. You can see them here, along with a press release concerning the ads. One of the ads, entitled "Tested," has the following voice over: "The last few years have tested America in many ways. Some challenges we've seen before. And some were like no others." At that point, the commercial shows a an American flag flying at Ground Zero. Another ad, "Safer, Stronger," contains a montage of graphics and pictures. One of the graphics reads, "A day of tragedy. A test for all Americans." One of the pictures accompanying that graphic shows firemen carrying the flag-draped remains of a person out of the rubble of the World Trade Center. But hey, that's not using death from a terrorist attack for political purposes, is it? To once again quote Vera Carp (see Bush: Of course we can win, but I don't think we can win, so we will win.), "Glass houses..." In case I have been too subtle for anyone, I will be more explicit. Using those images in a political campaign ad is definitely using death from a terrorist attack for political gain.

Bush might have been offended by Clinton's public displays of grief, but there were plenty of people offended by these ads. An article in the New York Daily News gave a sample of some of these people:

"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin tower attacks. "It is unconscionable."

Gabrielle and several other family members said the injury was compounded by Bush's refusal to testify in open session before the 9/11 commission.

"I would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the Statue of Liberty," said Tom Roger, whose daughter was a flight attendant on doomed American Airlines Flight 11. "But to show the horror of 9/11 in the background, that's just some advertising agency's attempt to grab people by the throat."

*******

Firefighter Tommy Fee in Rescue Squad 270 in Queens was appalled.

"It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place. The image of firefighters at Ground Zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics," Fee said.

And more objections appeared in an article in the Boston Globe.

Colleen Kelly, New York area coordinator for Peaceful Tomorrows, an advocacy group formed by relatives of those killed on Sept. 11, said the ads have sparked a flurry of telephone calls and e-mails from people who lost loved ones in the attacks.

"I've been getting calls on this all day," said Kelly, whose brother died at the World Trade Center. "I think it's absolutely inappropriate to be using these images for personal political gain. I don't think there is any understanding of how much pain those images cause."

*******

"I think it's outrageous that he should use our grief to promote his candidacy," said Wright Salisbury of Lexington, Mass., whose son-in-law was killed in New York. "I understand why he's doing this. He's trying to cover himself with the flag. He's trying to justify the war in Iraq by saying it had something to do with 9/11."

*******

"It almost feels like they're messing with my head," said David Potorti of North Carolina, whose brother was killed in the attacks on New York.

"We're not ready to move on and think about everything wonderful that's happened since 9/11. I want to know what happened on that day."

But wait...there's more from CNN:

"It upsets me tremendously that Bobby, my son, could be used as a political pawn to be manipulated and at times abused -- it truly makes me sick," said Bob McIlvaine, who lost his 26-year-old son in the World Trade Center attacks.

Added Rita Lasar, who lost a brother on 9/11, "President Bush promised in a speech he gave in 2002 that he would not use the site for political reasons. We believed him; we trusted him. He has broken his promise to us.

"To say that we're outraged is the truth, but it's more than outrage. It's a deep hurt and sorrow that any politician, Democrat or Republican, would seek to gain advantage by using that site."

*******

Retired firefighter Tom Ryan said, "They've deemed it that we're not allowed to see our heroic dead coming back from Iraq, but there, in a commercial to re-elect the president, they're using a dead firefighter to re-elect the president."

The speakers took no position on the presidential race, saying they would not want to see any politician use such imagery in a campaign ad.

And finally, more from Knight Ridder:

"Using my dead friends and my dead brother for political expediency is dead wrong," said Chris Burke, whose brother, Tom, died in the North Tower. "It's wrong, it's bad taste and an insult to the 3,000 people who died on Sept. 11."

*******

Burke, whose brother died in the attacks, said tears welled in his eyes when he first watched the ad. He said he wouldn't have minded Bush using the imagery if the president hadn't obstructed an independent commission that's investigating the attacks.

Bush initially opposed formation of the bipartisan commission and balked when the commission asked that its May 27 deadline be extended by two months. With the deadline recently pushed back, the commission and the White House are now wrangling over the scope of interviews with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I find it hypocritical that he would use 9/11 images and then not cooperate with the commission," said Stephen Push, co-founder of Families of September 11, a support group. Push's wife, Lisa Raines, was aboard the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon.

"I hope this leads him to pull the ads. I voted for George W. Bush, as did a lot of 9/11 families," Push said. "He's alienating people who supported him."

*******

"This is sacred ground and should not be used as a political backdrop," said Mary Fetchet, the director of Voices of September 11, another family support group.

As these comments attest, there were people who felt Bush was crassly exploiting 9-11 for political purposes.

"Oh, not so!" came various replies from the Bush camp. Here's one of my favorites:

In deciding to include the Sept. 11 images, Bush advisers said they made a calculated risk and expected some family members and Democrats to complain regardless of how sensitively they handled the subject. The only other alternative, they argued, would have been to ignore the terrorist attacks altogether -- an unacceptable option eight months before the election.

In other words, their only choices were 1) put these precise images in these ads, or 2) not mention 9-11 at all. This is such bullshit. The Bush camp has claimed that 9-11 and Bush's leadership after 9-11 defined his Presidency and are therefore very relevant to this campaign. I agree, and Bush has every right to campaign on that basis. BUT showing these particular images in his ads IS NOT the only way to do that. This shows another favorite tactic of BushCo which is related to "Blame it on Clinton:" "We have no choice." In other words, they boldly state that their actions are justified because they speciously claim that there are only two extreme positions (such as "you're either totally with us or you are totally against us"). There are plenty of other ways to discuss 9-11 in the campaign. Bush could use words and no pictures. He could use different pictures. Instead, his campaign deliberately chose to use these images even though everyone knew there a chance of offending those who lost loved ones on 9-11.

Other responses from BushCo revealed that they really didn't care about the feelings of the 9-11 families. Top Bush strategist Karen Hughes appeared on CBS's Early Show on March 5, 2004. The video of this appearance can be found on this page. When host Harry Smith read a quote from a 9-11 widow that the ads were in bad taste, Hughes gave this response: "With all due respect, I just completely disagree [with the families], and I believe the vast majority of the American people will as well." She never said anything like "That was not our intention" or "We recognize the pain and loss of these families." She did nothing to acknowledge the feelings of the families. She did not concede that there would even be a possibility that the ads could be seen as disrespectful. And why did she not do any of that? Well, according to her, the "vast majority of American people" would agree with her because (as she said on ABC's Good Morning America) the ads are a "tastefully done reminder of our shared experience and what we have all been through as a nation." Really? Let me examine that from my own personal experiences. 9-11 was significant for me because that is the day my mother died. However, that happened in Wichita Falls, Texas, not New York. And she died after a long illness, not in a sudden, highly violent terrorist attack. So, while my family suffered a great loss on that day, my experience IS NOT the same as those who lost loved ones in the 9-11 attacks. I do not and cannot know the full amount of pain and grief those families went through--and neither can the "vast majority of American people." That IS NOT a nationally shared experience. But we as a nation did share the experience of the shock and outrage of 9-11, and the images used in the ads would certainly bring that back to most of us. So hey, who cares if the ads offended a few thousand 9-11 families? The ads really clicked with millions of voters, and that's what really counts, right?

Here's a bit of advice. Should you find yourself in need of comforting or sympathy, don't count on Karen Hughes.

Then again, you probably shouldn't count on anybody in the Bush campaign. As reported by the Washington Post, once the negative reaction to the ads sprang up,

the Bush-Cheney campaign went on the offensive yesterday, booking former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on two networks; former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik on three networks; Deena Burnett, the widow of United Flight 93 victim Tom Burnett, on five networks, including Spanish-language Univision; and Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican from Staten Island, on three cable shows. GOP officials said the interviews were booked only because of the controversy, and they said they believe their representatives would be viewed by most voters as having more stature than the critics.

(emphasis added). Wow. That the GOP would state that these representatives would have "more stature" than the 9-11 families who complained is callous enough, but take a close look at the bold-faced quote, especially these words: viewed by most voters...There you have it, folks. The Bush campaigns top priority is how voters feel, not how the 9-11 families feel. Now that's what I call compassionate conservativism. Un-freaking-believable.

Clinton placed more emphasis on fund raising (but not as much as Bush).

Limbacher saves special derision for Clinton's attendence at funerals of big fund raisers. The not so subtle implication is that Clinton valued his fund raisers over soldiers. These people sure have a lot of gall, 'cuz George W. Bush is the all-time fund raisin' President.

In the post on Defense 3, I discussed the speech and meeting at Fort Stewart on September 12, 2003. To reiterate, the AP report on that event said that

Afterward, the president flew to Jackson, Miss., to raise money for Haley Barbour, former Republican Party chairman who is challenging Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi. In a sign of the race's importance, Barbour is the only GOP candidate this year to win campaign appearances by both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The last stop for the day was another fund-raiser -- for the Power Center in Houston, a one-stop community development center founded 10 years ago in an abandoned Kmart by a Bush friend who delivered his inauguration benediction, the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell.

I commented that Bush most of his day fund raising. That alone does not show that Bush puts a higher priority on fund raising than the troops, but maybe this fact from an October 30, 2003, article by Christopher Scheer does: "During a recent stop at Fort Stewart, President Bush visited returning soldiers but bypassed the wounded next door." I guess he didn't have time to meet with them and still get in his fund raising activities. Then again, maybe there was another reason why he skipped seeing the wounded at Fort Stewart. Could it have been the poor condition in which they were treated? This is a topic for another time, but here I will quote just a portion of an October 17, 2003, UPI expose on the conditions at Fort Stewart.

Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

*******

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.

*******

Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper.

Gee, I guess I really would not want to see any of that, either--especially when I still had to make fund raising trips to Jackson and Houston. You can read more about this situation in this CNN article.

Bush's conduct on September 12, 2003, and the conditions at Fort Stewart indicate to me that Bush places a higher priority on fund raising than the troops, but are there any other indications of that?

Why, yes, there are. The post on Defense 3 established that Bush met with families of fallen soldiers three times between the start of the war and the end of 2003. According to this AP report, beginning in mid May 2003, and ending on December 12, 2003 (a period of seven months), Bush appeared at 44 fund raising events. That's one every approximately 4.8 days. As for his meetings with families, given a start date of April 3 and an end date of December 12, that calculation is one every approximately 85 days. I suppose hugging takes more enrgy than shaking hands at a fund raiser (as will be shown in the post on Defense 6, Bush said it was his job to hug the families of dead soldiers), and Bush needed all that break time between family meetings. Then again, it appears that shaking hands is more important to Bush than hugging.

I bring up the meetings with families because, as discussed in Defense 3, those meetings are given as a substitute for attending funerals.

And even those occasions on which he met with the families, those meetings were preceded by what amounts to a campaign event. Review George's Aircraft Carrier Carnival to get the idea of how the Bush team treats public appearances in general and military appearances specifically. At Camp Lejeune on April 3, 2003, Bush gave his speech in a temporary stadium filled with 12,000 Marines and 8000 family members. Part of the crowd was in a field "ringed with tanks, allowing several Marines to climb higher for a better view." You can see the text of the speech and a video here. udge for yourself whether this was a campaign speech. The same goes for the speech at Fort Stewart (access the text and audio and pictures here). The speech at Fort Carson on November 24, 2003, is an interesting study. The text and video of the speech can be found here. Erin Emery of the Denver Post wrote that the speech was delivered in an aircraft hagar before 5200 soldiers and the families with whom Bush met afterwards. Now here's where it starts to get good...When Bush arrived in the hangar, everyone was waving American flags and chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" and Bush exited to cheers of "Four more years!" According to Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News, the soldiers had been waiting in the hangar for two and a half hours, and, according to Emery, they had been practicing cheering for Bush. Now try and tell me this speech was not first and foremost staged as a campaign event. But it gets even better...As Littwin wrote,

Before the press was herded into the giant hangar in advance of George W. Bush's pep rally/photo op with the Fort Carson troops, we were given the rules

No talking to the troops before the rally.

No talking to the troops during the rally.

No talking to the troops after the rally.

In other words, if I've done the math right, that means no conversation at all - at least, while on base - with any soldiers.

Jim Spencer of the Denver Post provided more information about these rules. There were 10 "ground rules" jointly written by the White House and the Army. Spencer mentioned three. Rule 3 contained the rules mentioned by Littwin. Rule 6 was "no roaming." And Rule 9 was "Write positive stories about Ft. Carson and the U.S. Army." Oh, but these rules were not in any way meant to unnecessarily restrict or control anything. "We're not trying to censor anything," said Maj. Russell Goemaere, a Fort Carson spokesman. "We just need quality control." These guys are good. And they called Clinton slick.

So there was a event for which soldiers were required to spend over two hours practicing cheers and were given flags to wave, a speech that was (in my opinion) more of a campaign speech than a tribute to the troops of Fort Carson, and rules which sought to prohibit access to any of the soldiers or the families. That, friends and neighbors, is exploiting an event at a military base--and its soldiers--for political gain. Not only is that similar what right wingers feel Clinton did in public displays of grief, that is putting one's own political interests ahead of those of this nation's military personnel.

And as further evidence of this, I will be posting pictures from Bush's official campaign site showing that he is using speeches at military bases for political purposes.

You would think that in return for helping his campaign and fighting in a war that he ordered, Bush would see fit to thank these soldiers by attending at least one funeral or memorial service. Unfortunately, what we have, in the words of Gen. Wesley Clark, is "a president who will go halfway around the world for a photo opportunity but won't go halfway across town for a funeral for an American serviceman."

Conclusion

1. The Bush apologists first argue that Clinton did not attend any military funerals, but ignore 1) the fact that he did attend a memorial service for the naval personnel killed in the U.S.S. Cole attack, and 2) Bush has not attended even one memorial.

2. Bush claims he was offended by Clinton's "exploitation of public grief for private gain," and Bush's supporters cite the memorial service in Oklahoma City as an example. However, through his campaign ads, Bush exploits deaths from the 9-11 terrorist attacks for his own political gain. Moreover, in doing so, his campaign shows extreme disregard for the 9-11 families.

3. Finally, Bush supporters argue that Clinton's public displays of grief show a favoring of fund raisers over soldiers, and yet Bush has placed more emphasis on fund raising than the troops, and he has even used them to help his campaign.

4. In short, this version of "Blame it on Clinton" is an exercise in factual inaccuracy and abject hypocrisy.