Back of the Envelope

There have been some complaints about the use of 9/11 in President Bush's ad campaign. Having watched the ads in question, all I can say is "Huh?" Yes, 9/11 will be mentioned in Bush's ad campaign. It was the defining event of his presidency. You'd have to go through incredible contortions to sell his record--heck, to even talk about his record--without mentioning 9/11. The two ads I saw were hardly exploitive, and the image from 9/11 was a sad but hopeful picture of damaged buildings behind the American flag. Now, if you wanted incendiary, you could show the famous image of the plane ramming into the building, or pictures of those who chose to die by jumping rather than being burned alive. That might have disturbed me. The image shown was the least offensive image from 9/11 that you could find and still have something recognizable to show while mentioning it.

Update: Clarified what I meant about incendiary images.