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Thu. Mar 04, 2004

Aggravating Imagery

Aggravating Imagery – Taegan Goddard points us to a quote in Newsday from the Bush administration, from just a couple of weeks ago (emphasis mine): ”A fire-breathing John Edwards stormed into the city yesterday and accused President George W. Bush of steering the GOP convention to New York to ’exploit’ the city’s suffering on Sept. 11, 2001, for political gain. Edwards, speaking at Columbia University, said Bush is trying to give the impression he has stood by the city while stiffing cops and firefighters on Homeland Security funding.”

”’I can’t believe he said that,’ said Kevin Madden, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign. ’They are playing politics with a national tragedy.’”

That must not exactly be a hard fast rule, judging by the reaction to their new TV ads: ”Relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and a firefighters union said Thursday they’re angry that President Bush’s new campaign ads include images of the destroyed World Trade Center and firefighters carrying a flag-draped stretcher through the rubble.”

”They say the ads are in poor taste and accuse Bush of exploiting the attacks [...] ’It makes me sick,’ Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother Bill Kelly Jr., in the attacks and leads a victims families group called Peaceful Tomorrows, said Thursday. ’Would you ever go to someone’s grave site and use that as an instrument of politics? That truly is what Ground Zero represents to me.’”

”Firefighters are shown in all the ads. Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, on Thursday called the ads disgraceful and said they should be pulled. ’We’re not going to stand for him to put his arm around one of our members on top of a pile of rubble at Ground Zero during a tragedy and then stand by and watch him cut money for first responders,’ Schaitberger said.”

You can watch the ads and decide for yourself (they’re only running in 18 states right now). I have, and I only found one of the three spots problematic, in a rather fleeting way. But I don’t think it’s the specific ads as much as it’s the opening shot of a declared strategy. It appears the advice the President is getting (and following) is similar to that of Dick Morris: ”He needs to elevate the sense of threat so that his advantage as a war president begins to count.” With the Republican Convention in Manhattan the week before September 11th, and with ads like this so early, it looks like we can expect them to stick with this strategy.

So I still put weight in the words of those a lot closer than me: ”Mindy Kleinberg said she was offended because the White House has not cooperated fully with the commission and because of the sight of remains being lifted out of Ground Zero in one of the spots. ’How heinous is that?’ Kleinberg asked. ’That’s somebody’s [loved one].’”

”’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.’”

Which is where I come in. Grabbed by the throat.

Thursday afternoon, I was working away on a web site with some music playing. The .mp3’s shuffled along until ”Into the Fire” by Bruce Springsteen came on. And out of nowhere, I was grabbed by the throat. Taken back to that day. And I had to stop working, because those old emotions bubbled back up and overwhelmed me. Tears. Again.

Two and a half damn years later. Out of nowhere.

And because this story had already been in the news that day, as I collected myself, I thought about what I’d just experienced. A core emotional response to the memory of that day.

And George Bush wasn’t in it anywhere.

It was not a triumphant memory of what followed, or frustration over what had been missed beforehand. It was that day, encapsulated. Period. Not what went before, or came after. That’s where I go when I see images (or even hear a song) about that day. A painful memory, not a victorious one. If George Bush flew a fighter jet to Pakistan tomorrow and JDAM’ed Osama bin Laden single-handedly, it would not change the feelings I get when I remember that day.

So when I see a politician try to … brand ... themselves with that imagery, I wonder if they understand the exact psychology of the association they are making. Because it isn’t a good one.

And it’s not just direct victims of 9/11 that find it offensive. Thursday morning, CNN had one of their e-mail questions on this topic. They got over a thousand in e-mails in a couple of hours, and 4 out of 5 had problems with the use of this imagery in the President’s ads. Not a scientific poll, to be sure, but if I were the author of those spots, it would sure make me wonder if my focus group testing was somehow flawed.

Everyone believes the Conventional Wisdom that Karl Rove & Company are geniuses at this kind of game. But when I see yet another example of their tone deaf approach (borne of too much isolation?), I look at it a different way: Karl Rove & Company only have one more Presidential campaign victory than Joe Trippi & Company.

And that’s really not saying much, is it?