The text of the ad doesn’t mention 9/11. The visuals – which I haven’t seen – apparently show a body being removed from the wreckage. And this is beyond the pale, I guess. It is now unacceptable for a president to remind people he was president during an attack on American soil.

Hmm. Well. It’s called running on one’s record. They get to do that. But now people who were secretly relieved that Bush was in the White House after 9/11 are complaining that Bush is reminding us . . . that he was in the White House after 9/11.

At Target today we went down the camping aisle; Gnat chattered about this and that as she paged through her new coloring book. I had a different emotion. I hate that row. I loathe it. After 9/11 I made the weekly Target run, and wondered whether it might not be prudent to get some camping stuff in case, well, we had to leave. What would we need if something awful happened, and we had to light out for the territories? If this seems like a ridiculous overreaction, then either you’ve forgotten what it felt like after 9/11, when no one knew what the hell was around the corner (besides anthrax). Or your primary reaction to 9/11 was to fight American overreaction to a regrettable but understandable act of karmic comeuppance. Me, I just channeled the inner Boy Scout. Be prepared. So I bought waterproof matches and a small cook stove and some propane tanks and a wind-up radio, and put them in a box in the garage with some canned goods and fresh water. I didn’t think it was likely we’d have to leave. And I didn’t want to be caught flat-footed if the worst happened. Toss the box in the trunk and roll. That box is still up on the shelf in the garage. The threat level could be light beige, and I wouldn’t take it down. Why would I?

So the ad is bad because it reminds us of those days. I know, I know – some things ought not be used for transient political advantages. For some, the the real issue isn’t what Willie Horton did, it’s pointing out that he did it. I know. But we need to be reminded. In an odd way, the attacks on New York and Washington were so harsh they cauterized the wound they caused. Or to switch metaphors – we were stabbed in the back, and that’s not a scar you see when you face yourself in the mirror.

People forget. People must not forget.

People forgot the Cole the day after it happened. People forgot the embassy attacks – if they were aware of them at all – by nightfall. People shrugged at Desert Fox and the Tomahawk attack on empty Afghan camps. No one took it seriously until we were all sitting in a dark room at 1 AM staring at the TV, watching the crawl, wondering what was next, stunned and horrified and scared. Three moments: Bush’s speech on the pile, the speech at the National Cathedral, and then the jaw-dropping State of the Union address, which was the moment when the national mood got off its knees and balled its fists and said that’s not going to happen again.

Remember?

The way some people are complaining, you’d think the ad had text like this:

“In the dark days after the attacks on America, President Bush gave the nation hope that this was not the end of our society, but the beginning of a new era in which grave threats would be met and overcome.”

That would be unacceptable, of course. Politicizing 9/11! Wrapping himself in the flag! Implying his opponents are unpatriotic! Plastic turkey! Aircraft carrier landing! Mission accomplished! AWOL! French goodwill squandered!

By this logic, FDR should have run his 44 campaign on his domestic agenda.

The theme of the Democratic primaries was clear: Bush is the problem, not the war. Clarification: the “war.” The “alleged” war. The “war” is a smokescreen to keep us in fear while a few top-hatted plutocrats convene in Texas to complete their grand strategy: we’ll invade Iraq for reasons we know will fall apart, and then we’ll turn the oil revenue over to the people under UN supervision, and the publicity will cause Halliburton stock to fall so we can buy it back at artificially depressed prices. Let’s all do the secret Mason handshake! Right. Paging Oliver Stone: you’re needed to script-doctor the third act, where Karl Rove’s shocktroops put Bill Maher and Howard Stern in a trunk so they don’t blow the whistle on the secret code in the electronic voting machines that returns a 99.9% mandate in the 2004 election.

Will Bush run ads that accuse the Democrats of fumbling the ball on al Qaeda in the Clinton years, and suggest that the last Democrat in the office seemed more concerned with slipping in some lap nooky before quitting time than killing bin Laden? No. Will Bush run ads that contrast John Kerry’s sonorous litany about “the worst foreign policy” with pictures of women in Kabul throwing off the burqa or men in Iraq toppling a statue? I can only hope; it would be right on the money. We fought back – but they were not wars of retribution. We salted no fields. We entered their lands – but they were not wars of conquest and sublimation; we demanded no tribute. We could have nuked the place flat. History will note that when we left, we left them with a constitution, a hundred thousand roofs festooned with satellite dishes, a souk where people could speak their mind again and buy newspapers that criticized the nation that had made this freedom possible.

Another suggested ad: “Some say that we shouldn’t haven’t invaded Iraq. Even after the discovery of mass graves. Even after the realization that the UN’s Food-for-Oil program diverted billions to Saddam’s pockets. Even after seeing how the terrorists have poured into Iraq to make a last desperate stand against freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Some say we should have listened to our allies.” A stock shot of Marcel Marceau in full-mime makeup, pretending to be trapped in a box. “Some people are a little too worried about what the waiter will think the next time they take a trip to Paris.” Shot of a Kerry lookalike in a bistro, saying “No, really, I’m Canadian.”

Reality check. That’s a cruel mean harsh nasty ad.