Just wondering

I see that Republicans are rushing to defend the Bush campaign's use of footage from Sept. 11 in television ads by arguing that it's only natural to display dead bodies from a national tragedy in a campaign ad. The latest is Rudy Giuliani, who seems to have gotten this week's talking points down pat:

I think if you asked a question, "Is September 11, 2001, a legitimate area for the president to point out?" He was facing challenges. You got to go back to the ad. The ad is challenges facing George W. Bush. Well, if you left out September 11, 2001, I think people would be asking, "Why is he leaving it out?" That was probably the biggest challenge that he's faced. Those of us who support him think he did a terrific job in getting the country through it. You know, other people on the other side have taken shots at him for not doing as good a job. So it's kind of unrealistic to think you're not going to have that as part of the political debate.

Of course, no one is exactly suggesting that Sept. 11 be off the table in terms of the national debate. The question in this case is why Mr. Bush is so crassly manipulating a national tragedy in the service of partisan politics. It's not whether he refers to 9/11; it's how he refers to it.

But Giuliani's point raises the question of what might have happened had a Democrat run such an ad in the wake of a similar "challenge."

Does anyone, for instance, remember all those Clinton campaign ads with footage from Oklahoma City?

[Eric Muller at Is That Legal? weighs in with a similar point, delivered graphically. And while we're at it, gotta wonder how many FDR '44 campaign posters featured Pearl Harbor.]

Just remember what we observed last Sept. 11: "Nothing is out of bounds for them."