Herman Cain, a Republican candidate for President, just released an ad that politicizes the 9/11 tragedy, and exploits the deaths of thousands of people at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Cain’s campaign ad may go down in history as the most-offensive, most-tone-deaf, and worst idea in presidential campaign ads ever. (If you are not offended by this ad, you should get down on your hands and knees and search for your humanity because obviously it got lost somewhere.) In many ways, this ad is the historic LBJ “Daisy” ad, but in reverse.
The two minute ad (below), opens with Herman Cain singing “God Bless America,” and a waving, tattered American flag. The remaining images are iconic CNN newsreel footage, with audio, of the two planes slamming into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, and news reports — including reporters’ voices — describing the terror attacks, followed by, again, iconic images of post-9/11 grieving, signs, people screaming, “Oh my God!,” images of the Pentagon after the plane hit it, a little girl kneeling in front of a stuffed animal propped up against a wall plastered with photos of the missing, a sign that reads: “Please find my Daddy,” a man standing in front of a fence with thousands of photos, his hand raised to cover his head in astonishment, and so on, and so on, and so on.
If there ever were a moment in time that someone desperately needed to be told, “No!,” this would have been it.
On September 7, 1964, Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) ran the famous “Daisy” campaign ad. It was so controversial, it ran only once. It was decades before the age of the Internet or YouTube, so the number of people who saw it was relatively small, and the Johnson campaign was in some circles excoriated for the use of a threat of the possibility of nuclear war, but the message was different.
In Cain’s ad, Cain positions himself as a savior, who presumably was there on 9/11 to pick up the pieces and mend America. A role Giuliani and Bush chose, however falsely.
But on September 11, 2001, Herman Cain was not a political leader. He did not step up to the plate to save America. In 2001, Herman Cain was a retired CEO and small-time political pundit in Atlanta who sat on a few corporate boards of directors.
So the idea that Cain would position himself as a savior, or as someone who rescued America, hell, that Cain would dare associate 9/11 with himself and his campaign flies in the face of anything decent. And that he would sing, “God Bless America,” with images of one of our nation’s most-tragic events, is beyond the pale.
Salon’s Alex Pareene calls the ad a “monstrosity,” and adds, “I guess Cain can now brag that he’s a former pizza magnate and crass exploiter of tragedies for political gain.” Chris Moody at The Ticket at Yahoo News adds, “A campaign spokeswoman said Cain recorded the song in one take.”
Like many millions, I was in Manhattan on 9/11. I fought to go downtown that day, because I had a business to run and I had people there. I didn’t know what to do, and I did a lot of things wrong that day, but I was there, doing my best. I’m not bragging, I have no reason to. And neither does Herman Cain.
Shame on you Mr. Cain. Shame.