| Stop Exploiting 911 for Bush's Political Gain:
Move the 2004 Republican Convention Out of New York
To: George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and the Republican Party
We, the undersigned, are outraged by your cynical decision to hold the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City in a transparent and disgusting effort to exploit the profound pain of September 11 for the crass political gain of George W. Bush.
Your motives are clear from the coverage in the New York Times:
Republican officials said they chose New York over two competing cities, Tampa and New Orleans, in part because of what they described as the enormous political and emotional symbolism that has become attached to the city since the terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001...
Roland W. Betts, a member of the committee of Republicans assembled by Mr. Bloomberg to lobby the White House, is a close friend of Mr. Bush. Mr. Betts said he directly pressed the events of Sept. 11 in lobbying for the convention with both Mr. Bush and Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser.
"What we focused on was that New York was the best background for the convention, growing out of the events of Sept. 11," Mr. Betts said in an interview. "The alternatives were inappropriate. Florida would have been all about the last election, and we would have to relive hanging chads."
In other words, Bush and Rove did not want to remind the American people that they stole the 2000 election in Florida. But Americans will never forget the stolen election.
Unfortunately, using New York City as a political prop is simply the culmination of a series of appalling actions by you to exploit 911 for political gain:
1. You cynically exploited the September 11 tragedy to boost your political standing by by claiming to have acted heroically on that morning, when in reality:
* You entered a classroom at the Booker Elementary School at 9:00 a.m., after having seen (in your words) the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.. You thus failed to order the scrambling of Air Force interceptors that could have prevented the second WTC crash at 9:03 and the Pentagon crash at 9:41
* You stayed in that classroom until nearly 9:30 a.m., after having been informed at 9:03 that the second plane hit the World Trade Center, further delaying the scrambling of Air Force interceptors that could have prevented the Pentagon crash at 9:41
* You flew to Louisiana and Nebraska, rather than returning to Washington to take command
* You allowed your press secretary to lie to the American people about your refusal to return to Washington by inventing a story that the White House was threatened with a secret coded message
* You sold a photo of you aboard Air Force 1 to Republican donors for $150
In a shocking effort to exploit 911 for partisan political gain, Bush sold this official photo on board Air Force 1 to Republican donors for $150
2. You have done everything in your power first to oppose, and then to undermine, a full, thorough, and independent investigation of the diplomatic, intelligence, and military failures that led to September 11. Your consistent efforts to frustrate such an investigation have left New Yorkers and all Americans in the dark about which U.S. government officials failed to protect America, and allowed those individuals to go unpunished. And they reinforce the strong feeling among millions of Americans that the United States government is afraid of the truth because it has something to hide.
3. You have cynically exploited the September 11 tragedy to enact a wide range of policies which people oppose, including:
* Destroying an appalling range of Constitutional rights, including unrestricted big-brother-like surveillance through wiretapping and e-mail interception, demanding library checkout records, detention without trial, trials with secret evidence, spying on lawyer-client conversations, mass arrest and deportation of immigrants, and widespread denial of access to government records
* Planning the invasion of Iraq, even though there is NO connection between Iraq and September 11
4. You have delivered less than $5 billion of the $21.4 billion promised to New York to repair the damage from September 11.
For these reasons, we call upon you to:
1. Declare publicly that you will no longer exploit the September 11 tragedy for your political gain in any way
2. Replace your appointees to the September 11 Commission with non-partisan truthseekers, including relatives of the victims, and turn over all relevant information about governmental failures to the Commission
3. Deliver the full $21.4 billion you promised to New York, and
4. Move the 2004 Convention to another city, not New York City | |
