"Furor" over Bush's 9/11 ads was entirely manufactured

Instapundit.com ^ | mar 09 | Instapundit

[Puntagorda]

"Furor" over Bush's 9/11 ads was entirely manufactured:

We have no doubt that the use of the images is appropriate - given that the president's leadership in the wake of 9/11, and his conduct of the War on Terror, are under drumbeat assault by John Kerry and the Democrats.

But now it turns out that this whole furor is driven by a tiny group that's motivated by a far-left agenda and a festering hatred of the president - and has some quite dubious financial ties.

Leading the rhetorical charge has been an outfit called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows - which, the group admits, has only a few dozen members and represents relatives of no more than 1 percent of the 9/11 victims.

More to the point, the group was formed specifically to oppose the entire War on Terror: Not just the campaign against Saddam Hussein, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the group's leaders traveled to Afghanistan, drawing a detestable moral equivalence between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. bombing of the Taliban and opposing "violent responses to terrorism." . . .

And back in January 2003, the group said had it had gotten a "verbal commitment" to the fund proposal from the junior senator from Massachusetts - John F. Kerry.

Little surprise there - because Peaceful Tomorrows' parent group, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, has received millions from foundations controlled by Kerry's heiress wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Tides gets much of its funds from philanthropists like Mrs. Kerry and billionaire George Soros - who has made defeating President Bush his top personal priority.

As Richard Berman, director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, told Congress in 2002: "The Tides Foundation distributes other foundations' money, while shielding the identity of the actual donors."

Call it charitable money-laundering.

Could this be a campaign-finance law violation? I don't know enough to tell, but it's certainly an end-run, legal or otherwise. But it's yet another reason to wonder why the finances of nonprofits don't get more scrutiny -- and why the press is so ready to take these sorts of groups at face value, instead of looking into where their money comes from.

And, once again, it looks as if another "peace" group isn't really for peace, but simply on the other side. And, apparently, on Kerry's side as well.

That should bother him, and at least some of his supporters. Shouldn't it?

[Puntagorda]

OK, we know the outrage at the Bush ads were manufactured. But wheres the media reporting on the matter?

[ChadGore]

ABC ? NBC ? CBS ? MSNBC ? NYT ?

[beaversmom]

Wonder when Couric will be reporting this?

[Russ]

None of it could have been accomplished without the willing aid and assistance of the media (including Fox!). They are the enablers of the hate-Bush crowd.

[Reactionary]

Couric won't report it. She's too much of an ideological nitwit to care.

Couric is, like most liberals, as self-satisfied nothing, a zero, a mediocrity with all of the "correct opinions."

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - ELECTION 2004 - Heinz

[jmstein7]

BUMP!

[Hokahey]

I have a question for you -- then where have all the rest of the families of 9/11 come forwarded and defended the ads? Why does someone break their promise? Would you use the ads? Think for yourself and quit letting everyone else think for you.

[SuziQ]

There have been relatives of 9/11 victims who HAVE come forward and defended the President's use of the images in his ads. Deborah Burlingame wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Her brother was one of the pilots on Flight 11 that hit the Pentagon. She said she was a Democrat, but supports the President's use of the images because it was such a defining moment in our country's history, and he has been willing to act in response to the attacks. His predecessor never really did anything other than bomb an aspirin factory and some empty tents. He wouldn't have done that except for the fact that he wanted something, ANYTHING to take Monica Lewinsky off the front page of the newspapers.