Democrats charge Bush politicized national day of mourning

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT/AP: Bush Cites 9 / 11 to Win Iraq War Support
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 12, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is invoking the memory of Sept. 11 to defend the war in Iraq, drawing protests from Democrats who say he politicized a national day of mourning....

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Bush began with a two-minute tribute to the ''nearly 3,000'' victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, but most of his 17-minute speech was devoted to justifying his foreign policy since that day. With his party's control of Congress at stake in elections less than two months away, Bush suggested that political opponents who are calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would be giving victory to the terrorists....

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''The president should be ashamed of using a national day of mourning to commandeer the airwaves to give a speech that was designed not to unite the country and commemorate the fallen but to seek support for a war in Iraq that he has admitted had nothing to do with 9/11,'' Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement. ''There will be time to debate this president's policies in Iraq. September 11th is not that time.''

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Tuesday....''The American people deserved better last night,'' Reid said in prepared remarks. ''They deserved a chance to reclaim that sense of unity, purpose and patriotism that swept through our country five years ago.''...

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

[ERF]

1. I actually expected worse. Overall he kept it pretty low key

and of course he has to defend his foreign policy. The fact that * wasn#t more blatant only goes to show that people have grown very, very tired of that trick.

I am surprised there wasn't a drummed up terrorist scare.

[Missy M]

2. You call what bush did yesterday low key?...

He was all over the place trying to justify his war in Iraq, I wouldn't call that "low key". He made 9/11 all about him.

[ERF]

3. We are talking about a man who landed on an aircraft carrier

announcing the end of a war, when it was just beginning.

Unfortuantely, for him, it was low key.