"RATS!" Robert Moran places the manufactured outrage over the use of 9/11 images in President Bush's commercials into context.

At some point, it may just begin to dawn on most Americans that the press won't allow President Bush the benefit of appearing to do anything right this year. And that they may have placed their bet on who they'd prefer to win the election and are actively trying to influence the outcome. If only just a little...

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg writes:

I think these complaints are nonsense squared. A lot more people died during Vietnam than on 9/11 and John Kerry has been running ads with footage from there for months. These families may have a unique relationship to 9/11 but they do not have ownership of that day, politically, culturally or otherwise and it would be absurd if this administration caved on this point, even though I'm sure the media will be delighted to exploit the personal tragedies of these families.

Sounds ugly? Hey, no worse than smearing Bush's service record.

UPDATE: Hey, great minds think alike. I just came across this post on National Security Blog:

Dan Tran said speaking as a member of Vietnamese Americans Against John Kerry, "On behalf of tens of thousands of Vietnamese-Americans, we are determined to demonstrate against Senator Kerry all across this nation."

Dan Tran, a NASA engineer and president of the Vietnam Human Rights Project, said, "John Kerry aided and abetted the communist government in Hanoi and has hindered any human rights progress in Vietnam."

ANOTHER UPDATE: When I wrote "manufactured outrage" above, I was referring to the press. But "Lt. Smash" writes that they're not the only ones manufacturing outrage at President Bush.

I hate to sound like a broken record (and yes, this is very much a rhetorical question), but why isn't the media making these connections??

(Via InstaPundit.)