class action law suit against RNC for running 9/11 ads??
could the family members who lost loved ones in 9/11 fill a class action suit against those running ads with 9/11 images? the thing is, the repubs who made the ads admit that they want to remind people and tug at their emotional response to 9/11...which is fine for most of us, but is it intentional emotional harm to the families that have dead family members still buried in that rubble forever?? and how would the courts look on this if they find memos stating..."these images are so powerful, they will really affect the people who watch these ads, will really remind them of that horrible day and remind them how this presidency reacted to it"...you know memos like that are out there...can they be sued for emotional trauma...i know that was an emotionally wrenching day (and week and month and more) for me and i didn't know a single person lost...how horrible that time, and the time since, most be for the people who actually lost family and friends...to have those images come up in political ads must be both painful and, at best, insensitive to those 3000's families...
for how slick the repubs usually are in politics, this blunder is quite a surprise...especially as a first step towards re-election...
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for how slick the repubs usually are in politics, this blunder is quite a surprise...especially as a first step towards re-election...
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Comments
The repubs have always had difficulty reading people's responses (well so have the democrats, so I will now generalize this to all political parties and thus avoid being flamed). Political parties don't do people.
Originally posted by thegelding
could the family members who lost loved ones in 9/11 fill a class action suit against those running ads with 9/11 images?
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Since 1776, presidential campaigns have largely focused on "rally-round-the-flag" patriotic images and feelings. What happened following 9/11 and the nation's patriotic response to the crises brings these feelings to mind. They fit with the usual Bush "the best of the American spirit" imagery and print copy.
Diagnosis: Liberal New Yorkers see a chance to assault Bush re:9/11... I lost 2 friends in World Trade Two. I see nothing wrong with a president referring to events, good or bad, that have happened during his or her administration.
but the survivors have every right to make a loud noise, especially if they think they've been done wrong.
using those images are going to help get some votes and lose some votes.
same thing applies to having their convention in new york, they may be opening pandora's box with WTC victims families.
And this really isn't a liberal versus conservative issue so stop trying to make it one. This is an idiot campaign manager issue...
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
yeah i think the RNC has every right to use it, what if WWII widows tried to sue over the same reasons, i mean it's history.
but the survivors have every right to make a loud noise, especially if they think they've been done wrong.
using those images are going to help get some votes and lose some votes.
same thing applies to having their convention in new york, they may be opening pandora's box with WTC victims families.
What he said. I think its tasteless to use it as a commercial for their product but others might feel differently. But its a moral issue taht doesn´t belong in the court rooms.
Originally posted by billybobsky
Friends are different than family members...
Wow, way to completely invalidate his feelings about losing his friends *and* come off as a condescending ass, all at one fell swoop. Amazing.
Originally posted by billybobsky
Friends are different than family members...
Oh, well, nevermind then. Sorry for bringing it up.
Quote:
And this really isn't a liberal versus conservative issue so stop trying to make it one. This is an idiot campaign manager issue...
Um, it is fully a liberal-conservative issue with the country split 50/50. Almost everything is. It's called the Culture War. People who would otherwise be more moderate are polarizing and getting upset over things that otherwise would not bother them, simple because they are done by someone who has different beliefs.
If candidate A ties his shoes wrong, but I really hate him because of his stance on cabbage prices, I will gladly call for an investigation of his shoe-tying, even though I really do not care about how the man ties his shoes.
Would I have used the Ad? Nope. Bad choice. Firefighters were enough. But I did not find it grossly, outrageously inappropriate.
Originally posted by Scott
I think Vietnam veterans and widows of those should sue Kerry for using that war to boost his campaign. He's inflicting emotional damage on them.
Does anyone remember that old LBJ ad with the little girl and the mushroom cloud? Now that was intimidation. While the RNC might be guilty of the same thing, how is that case any different, or should the DNC back then have had a class action suit brought against them too?
Originally posted by BuonRotto
How this opinion could be covered in a class action suit is beyond me. To me, it runs straight into the First Amendment.
Well, get ready. McCain-Feingold First Amendment lawsuits are coming. Stay tuned.
Banning political speech near an election. Making voting records mum. Reeeeeeaaaal healthy for republican democracy.
Originally posted by Jubelum
sorry, can't reply to scott so i have to use your reply...
one...kerry was in vietnam during the war, so he probably has earned the right to use images from that war...
two...bushie was neither in the towers when they were attacked, nor was he with those brave firefighters and police officers when they rushed into the burning towers to save lives and, sadly, tragically, heroically lost their lives...so the bushman probably hasn't earned the right to use those images without permission of the families involved...his standing on the wreakage is ok, the use of a flag covered body being removed isn't...(now if a terrorist flys a plane into one of his kids at a bar and he wants to use her image in a commercial, that would be fine...personal tragedy is fine to use for political gain, other peoples tragedies are not)
three...if a memo is found that goes something like, "i'm sure this may upset some of the families involved, but it is too important to tug at the heartstrings of the vast american people to worry about the much smaller number of families we may upset"...then could we have a lawsuit for intention mental anguish??
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it is really the difference between clinton and bush...no matter how much you may have dislike clinton, when he went somewhere after a tragedy and said "i feel your pain" you believed it (right or wrong)...with bush you just get the sense of "i profit from you pain"...maybe it was just that clinton wanted everyone to like him and bush couldn't give a shit what anybody thinks other than cheney and rove...but if bush really cared about the families of 9/11 and really reached out to them and touched them and "felt their pain", well they wouldn't now be pissed at him for using those images
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They said the controversy had been expected and was serving their aim of changing the debate from Democratic turf like health care and jobs to Mr. Bush's strongest suit, national security.
"Are we on the Democrats' issue of health care, or are we on the Republican issue of national security?" said one Republican official with ties to the campaign. "On Wednesday we rolled out the spot ? we changed the tone fundamentally. They missed the opportunity to tell the American people what the campaign is about. This is how the president has framed the question before the American people."
But Democrats said they did not believe that the president's aides had expected this much furor.
"We're not debating national security ? we're debating tastelessness and a willingness to offend stricken families for political purposes," said Jim Jordan, Mr. Kerry's former campaign manager and a spokesman for the Media Fund, a Democratic advocacy group. "Being accused of insensitivity by the widow of a 9/11 victim is a bad thing ? no matter how you slice it."
and so it begins
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Originally posted by thegelding
it is really the difference between clinton and bush...no matter how much you may have dislike clinton, when he went somewhere after a tragedy and said "i feel your pain" you believed it (right or wrong)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....
*sigh*
Only the suckers believed it.
They're all politicians. They lie when their lips move, and convictions are at the whim of polls.
actual controversy - a true legal dispute which leads to a genuine lawsuit rather than merely a "cooked up" legal action filed to get a court to give the equivalent of an advisory opinion. Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, will only consider an "actual controversy", on appeal, since they will not give advisory (informal) opinions or make judgments on "friendly suits" filed to test the potential outcome.
I don't think that 9/11 families necessarily have the standing to file suit here because the ad itself doesn't show the faces of victims. Yes it may conjure up bad memories but so does every news story that features video of the attacks on the WTC, granted those aren't being used for political gain.
The president has every right to use 9/11 as a rallying cry for his campaign.
What the president DOES NOT have the right to do is use imagery of firefighters at the WTC, bodies draped with flags being pulled out of the rubble, etc. THAT'S EXPLOITATION! Period.
My god, if Bill Clinton pulled this stunt every network news show, every cable news network, every talk show would lead with this as their top story. Ed Gillespie would be working the circuit for a week railing against the Dems. Sean Hannity would be in a furious fit DEMANDING apologies from every Democrat that crossed one of his microphones. I can almost hear it, "aren't you ashamed of the president? Are you prepared to demand an apology from him?"
Yet, what do we hear from the press...chirp chirp. Page six.
Originally posted by thegelding
They said the controversy had been expected and was serving their aim of changing the debate from Democratic turf like health care and jobs to Mr. Bush's strongest suit, national security....
and so it begins
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I wrote something very similar today on my site:
"Everyone's talking about the new Bush ads that came out the other day and the controversy that's emerged in the wake of their use of the tragedy of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 for political gain. I was thinking that myself this morning, while I watched a pundit talk about them. Like many folks, I wondered why on earth they would have done such a thing. To my knowledge, Clinton didn't use the OKC bombing at all in his re-election bid in 1996. Sure, the easy answer is simply that this administration has invoked 9/11 at every opportunity, since they know that this is the horse that got them where they are.
But then it occurred to me that they're doing precisely what they're supposed to do. They were designed to spark a controversy. The Bush supporters are largely going to have no problem with them, and they're undoubtedly going to re-affirm his supporters' conviction that he is entitled to re-election. Those who might be wavering a little, or who may be unhappy with his apparent failures on every other front, will be reminded of this maxim that goes largely unspoken by the admin, but which we are beginning to see pop up here and there: it doesn't matter if the economy's doing well if a nuke goes off in NYC or Chicago. It's a powerful argument for many folks, I imagine.
But here's where things get interesting. The other side saw the ads and went ballistic. Family members of victims are being rolled out to decry the tasteless use of 9/11 for political gain. Pundits are screaming at one another over it all. The bloggers are all over the issue. Discussion fora are overflowing with threads about the matter.
And that's the point. The controversy over whether or not the ads are ethical effectively shifts the discussion from the Democrats and Kerry and to Bush--for good or for ill. But, and this is an important "but," notice the terms of the debate itself. The issue of the ethics of exploiting national tragedy for political gain cannot be discussed without every discussion centering on Bush's leadership in a time of crisis. It cannot be discussed without constant, and I mean constant discussion of 9/11. And so rather than focus on the ethics of using 9/11 in a campaign ad, the debate is about Bush's leadership (which, in turn, works in his favor, since he did lead, he was in charge, he did respond, he took decisive action [whether or not that action was just, it was decisive, as is often the case with Bush, it seems to me]). The question of ethics is quickly forgotten and a constant commercial for Bush's leadership/stewardship runs on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and every major newspaper in the US.
This is the brilliance of the ads: they get to use 9/11 as a campaign strategy by sparking a debate about whether or not they should use 9/11 as a campaign strategy."
Cheers
Scott