911: Exploiting a Tragedy - a timeline.

[reprehensor]

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=6228#2

Exploiting a Tragedy

President Bush yesterday used a "brief visit" to a 9/11 memorial to force taxpayers to pick up the tab for a political fundraising trip in which he raked in more than $1.6 million for his campaign. The White House has repeatedly used this tactic before, even using a brief visit to Martin Luther King's grave as a pretext to get taxpayers to foot the bill for a Georgia fundraiser. But it has never been used before with 9/11, as the President himself had previously declared that tragic day off limits from politics. And as the WP notes, the proximity between politics and Sept. 11 "was unmistakable" yesterday. Unfortunately, yesterday was only the latest chapter in the White House's deliberate attempt to politicize 9/11. Well before the debris from Ground Zero was cleared, the White House at every turn began distracting the public from its pre-9/11 security failures, trying to reap political advantage from the terrorist attacks themselves. Here is a timeline of the politicization of 9/11, and questions that are still unanswered:

WHITE HOUSE INITIALLY DEPLORES POLITICIZATION: While the White House now says Bush "has every right" to politicize 9/11 and the War on Terror, it was President Bush and Vice President Cheney who reassured Congress after 9/11 that national security would never be used for political purposes. On 1/23/02, President Bush said, "I have no ambition whatsoever to use as a political issue." On 5/17/02, Vice President Cheney even said legitimate questions about the White House's failure to better defend America before 9/11 were "thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war." On 3/4/03, Senate Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-AL) was asked if his party should use the war for political gain and responded, "Absolutely not. And as a Republican, I would deplore such tactics. I think that what we've got to do in a bipartisan way, as Americans, is win this war."

19 WEEKS AFTER 9/11, POLITICIZATION BEGINS: Less than 19 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, top White House adviser Karl Rove gave a speech on 1/19/02 urging fellow conservatives to "go to the country" on issues surrounding the War on Terror, an invitation to politicize national security in an election year, as he claimed Americans trust conservatives to do a better job of "protecting America." The NYT noted that the White House had effectively "rolled out of a strategy branding anyone who questions the administration as 'giving aid and comfort to our enemies,'" as Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) said.

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