Despite Criticizing Bush, Clinton Uses 9/11 in Ad
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Senator Clinton, who is using images from ground zero in a new television ad for her presidential campaign, sharply criticized President Bush when he put pictures from the World Trade Center site in his campaign advertising.
“The President has said in the past that he would do nothing that would politicize this terrible tragedy,” Mrs. Clinton was quoted as saying in the Daily News on March 6, 2004, shortly after Mr. Bush’s ads were released. “I hope that they would be more sensitive going forward.”
Mrs. Clinton’s new 30-second ad, which is running in Iowa and New Hampshire, includes a black-and-white still photograph of firefighters walking through the rubble and another of Mrs. Clinton wearing a dust mask as she met with rescue personnel.
“She stood by ground zero workers who sacrificed their health after so many sacrificed their lives, and kept standing until this administration took action,” an announcer says over the post-attack images, which are the first to appear in television advertising from a 2008 presidential candidate.
One of Mr. Bush’s ads depicted firefighters removing a flag-covered body from the rubble. Others showed an American flag waving amid the destruction.
The Bush campaign’s use of the ground zero pictures drew criticism and condemnation not only from Mrs. Clinton, but also from firefighters and family members of victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
“Our message to all politicians is, ‘Keep your hands off Ground Zero,'” the brother of one of those killed, David Potorti, of Cary, N.C., told USA Today in 2004.
Reached yesterday, Mr. Potorti said he was not familiar with Mrs. Clinton’s ad but still opposes use of ground zero imagery by any politician.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton declined to respond to a query yesterday about her campaign’s views on appropriate and inappropriate uses of the ground zero imagery. The New York Sun was alerted to her 2004 comments by a rival presidential campaign, which asked not to be identified.
A spokesman for the International Association of Fire Fighters, Jeffrey Zack, said his union’s objection to Mr. Bush’s ads was not to the images per se, but to the implication that the president led efforts to help first responders. “We would object to the use of 9/11 images by anyone who uses them while distorting their record,” Mr. Zack said. He offered no critique of Mrs. Clinton’s ad.
