Zero tolerance

I'm not surprised that people who lost relatives in 9/11 are disgusted by Dubya's gang using pictures from the scene in his first election ad. When I saw the ad the other day, it struck me as pretty tasteless, but not being American I thought I should keep my mouth shut. Those pictures have long been out of bounds for British broadcasters, because they are so powerful (and so easily over-used) it was felt they should be kept out of programmes unless they were absolutely essential to tell the story.

Now if morally suspect TV types like me can see the sense of this and appreciate that using these images is a no no, why can't politicians? Answer: because for scumbags like George W Bush, nothing is sacred. Everything is up for grabs; everything can be bought. Nothing ultimately matters.

So Bush and his gang have shoehorned 9/11 into one of their poxy soft-focus ads, with the implicit message that in difficult times you need to have faith in your leaders. "They're showing the President as a human being, as a caring leader. The events we see are history now, tragic history, very tragic, but it shows a man in charge, someone who has a clear, defined image of what he wants this country to accomplish," according to Republican activist John Hambrick.

A man in charge? Yeah, right. We now know that Mr Big Balls Bush spent the hours immediately after 9/11 on the toilet of Air Force One, flying around in circles waiting to be told it was safe for him to land. Where he should have been is Ground Zero. Of course he could always look at the pictures.