Very interestink!! remember the lady who did the commercial for Kerry about her husband who died in the 9/11 attack??
KRISTEN BREITWEISER READIES SENATE BID
Kristen Breitweiser, the political activist whose husband was murdered on 9/11, long ago publicly hinted on MSNBC's Hardball that she was interested in running for the Senate from New Jersey. Her latest move - endorsing John Kerry for President - is just one more step along the way in her transformation from an attorney with a legal career of precisely three days to U.S. Senator. It is also one step down from the lofty perch from which she began her entry into national politics - that of grieving 9/11 widow.
If you are of the mind that no one dare criticize Kristen Breitweiser because her husband died on 9/11 you might want to skip this article. I have no problem with Breitweiser speaking her piece, endorsing a political candidate or running for elected office. I am very sorry for her that her husband was killed when the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. More to the point, she is an American and is free to do as she pleases. That said, I am more than tired of the media giving Breitweiser a free pass because she was one of thousands who lost a loved one on 9/11. If she wants to play political hardball it ought to be a two-way street.
Breitweiser no longer has a valid claim to trot out her tired "I'm a 9/11 widow" defense for every criticism or challenge to her point of view. She has come up with real arguments and be held accountable for her wildly inconsistant statements. To quote that noted Republican strategist, Britney Spears, Breitweiser is "not that innocent."
Just weeks after 9/11, Breitweiser was working as an activist, meeting with top Democrat officials like Richard Gephardt and pushing for Congress to give 9/11 families tax-relief. Within a year of 9/11 she had formed September 11th Advocates to push her agenda for a 9/11 investigation which soon turned into a platform for Breitweiser and her Jersey Girls pals to bash the Bush administration.
In the weeks preceding the first anniversary of 9/11, Breitweiser went on national TV to promote her call for what became the 9/11 Commission. She told Phil Donahue,
...we are fighting for an independent investigation, an investigation into 9/11 removed from the political process. We don't feel comfortable with Congress investigating itself, basically. You have congressional committees that had oversight duties with the FBI and the CIA. We want politics removed. We want pure accountability, and we feel that an independent investigation is needed to have that.
But Breitweiser did not just want an investigation she wanted a say in the scope and duration of an investigation. In a Letter to the Editor in the New York Times, Breitweiser took issue with Republican concerns, expressed by Ari Fleischer, that an open-ended investigation of unlimited scope and duration would lead to a politicized investigation of some very serious issues. Breitweiser wrote:
...to limit the scope and duration of a commission so that it cannot thoroughly examine fault, to limit its subpoena power so that information and answers are not forthcoming, and to insist upon having the president nominate the chairman, who will control the commission's agenda, smacks of "paralysis and politics."
This is a line of argument lifted straight from then-current DNC talking points.
In the end, Bush administration concerns were borne out and it was Breitweiser herself who was among the most active in politicizing the 9/11 hearings, using her numerous media appearances to take pot shots at President Bush and Bush administration officials. She rarely, if ever, volunteered criticism of anyone but Bush and his officials or noted that terrorists, not the government, killed her husband.
After one too many appearances on Hardball, it was The National Debate that first called on the media to recognize what Breitweiser had become - a partisan political operative. The next day, Dorothy Rabinowtiz of The Wall Street Journal picked up the theme. Howard Kurtz joined in by reporting on our two commentaries. Rush Limbaugh was next up when he asserted that two of the Jersey Girls had been coached by Democrats to criticize Bush
Breitweiser responded directly to Limbaugh in a letter:
I am one of the widows you are wrongly accusing of being 'schooled' by the Democratic Party. My name is Kristen Breitweiser. I am not a Democrat. I voted for President Bush. So did my husband who was killed on 9/11.
This is classic disingenuous Breitweiser, "Don't criticize me, I'm a widow". In other words, how could I be working with the Democrats when I voted for Bush? When my dead husband voted for Bush?
Yet this is the same Breitweiser who was criticizing Bush campaign ads last March in words again lifted directly from DNC talking points - words now featured on the Kerry campaign site. If her concern is with a non-partisan examination of intelligence failures why is she commenting on Republican campaign ads?
In the current edition of Newsweek, Breitweiser portrays hers as a spontaenous decision to endorse John Kerry just a few weeks ago. When asked whether there was a particular moment that triggered her decision to speak out in favor of Kerry, Breitweiser laughably told Newsweek,
"For me, it was the Republican National Convention."
Even better, Breitweiser goes on to say it was RNC speeches which referenced 9/11 that pushed her to back Kerry. In other words, as is often the case with Breitweiser, it's George Bush's fault that she is now campaigning for Kerry.
And about accusations over the past year that she is a Democratic political operative? If we are to believe Breitweiser, up until a couple of weeks ago she had nothing to do with the Democrats. Yet suddenly she is so determined to elect John Kerry that she is giving press conferences, signed up to make campaign appearances and offers that she is "committed" to do everything she can to elect John Kerry. She even makes it a point to tell everyone who will listen that she is even willing to fly on an airplane, something she has not done since 9/11 because she has been too frightened to fly.
Keep in mind that the 9/11 Commission was formally dissolved on Aug. 21, 2004. The Republican National Convention began on Aug. 30, 2004. So, if we take Breitweiser at her word, she waited all of about nine days to go from "independence", "removal from the political process", and "pure accountability" to becoming an openly partisan political operative taking on a high profile role in a Presidential campaign just weeks away from the election.
thenationaldebate.com |
