Plum Crazy

So, do I think that it is inappropriate for Bush to use pictures of 9/11 in his campaign commercials? Not precisely. I would have no problem with pictures of Bush at Ground Zero appearing in his campaign commercials. He was there three days later, and I see nothing wrong with him using footage of that visit. That was something he did. He has every right to use his achievements in his campaign commercials.

Where I have a problem is that he's not using that footage, but is, instead, using footage of firefighters pulling a flag-draped coffin out of the wreckage. This bothers me tremendously. Bush was very clear that he supported the policy to not show pictures of flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq. He feels, as do I, that it would be insensitive to the family members of those soldiers. Why don't the family members of 9/11 victims deserve the same level of respect and sensitivity? This makes me question whether he truly does feel that showing pictures of coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq would be insensitive to the families, or whether he feels that showing them would be detrimental to his chances of being re-elected.

To sum up my feelings on controversy prime:

This picture:

Fine.

This picture:

Not fine.

Now on to my reaction to (some of) the reaction to the reaction to the photos. There are people who are casting those upset by the use of the photos as, in essence, villains. They are accused of expressing "mock outrage". They are "politicizing" the issue. I find this even worse than the use of the flag-draped coffin picture.

First, I just find the idea that family members who are upset are expressing mock outrage to be thoroughly distasteful. Is it so impossible that they are genuinely upset? Are they such vile people that they are incapable of expressing genuine upset over the tragic death of a loved one? I will concede that it is possible that a few of them have more than one motivation, and perhaps the impure one is the primary motivation for these few, but all of them? On what basis is such a conclusion to be drawn, other than they disagree with the bloggers in question?

Which leads me to my second point - Such a characterization assumes that anyone who disagrees with the blogger is acting from bad motives. It brooks no reasonable disagreement. The only possible grounds are falsely restricted to dislike of Bush. This is, at best, overly simplistic. The subject is not black and white. This isn't like "1+1=2". The appropriateness of using the photographs in campaign commercials is surely something that is subjective. Why are the grounds for disagreement so falsely limited?

Furthermore, the attack is supported using a logical fallacy - biased sample. Two family members who are upset are chosen, both of whom have never liked Bush. Since two of the family members don't like Bush, the blogger draws the conclusion that everyone expressing upset doesn't like Bush. There is no evidence to support that. In fact, one of the family members quoted in an article I have read is a Republican. I knew her husband, who was killed on 9/11, and it is highly unlikely they voted for Al Gore in 2000.

I now anxiously await the fourth derivative of the controversy.

UPDATE: Let me clarify precisely who I mean in terms of the second point. Specifically, I am referring to Citizen Smash and Instapundit. No one else. I linked to a bunch of posts of people writing about the issue, some of whom agreed with me. Any trackbacks that were sent were sent because trackback auto-discovery is turned on.