Tom Bevan has a good question up today on RCP (and, uncharacteristically, the wrong conclusion). It has to do with the images of death used in campaign commercials (or for any ‘communication’). Here is his question:

It seems that right around the time the DCCC was pulling its latest video because of the vehement protestations of Republicans (and a couple of Democrats) over using a split-second image of flag-draped coffins, Senator Mike DeWine’s campaign was firing up this website with an ad that put his opponent’s picture on screen alongside images of the smoking WTC towers on 9/11 and mugshots of the 19 hijackers.

Hopefully Mr Bevan will not mind me posting the entire text (the picture of the ad is at RCP), but it was so short there was no way to snip a section without editing out his intent. I have wrestled with this myself, because my immediate reaction is DCCC ad was bad and tasteless and 9-11 pictures are not. Now I tend to trust my insticts immensely, they have been proven correct time and time again in my 46 years on this planet. So I felt there had to be something subtle at work, and there was.

LJStrata and I discussed this very subject and my first realization was the intent of the message in the image is what is important. To say their is death in an image and therefore all images are equal is too simple, too broad. That would make Al Qaeda images of beheadings on the same level as images of 9-11. What was different was the cause, the message behind the iimages. For 9-11 images we have these images to remember those who died, to remain dedicated to bringing those to justice who killed our neighbors and family members. We use the image to remember their sacrifice.

The images of a dead soldier can be used in this manner too. We see the helmet on gun memorial time and time again to remind us someone paid the ultimate price. They are fighting for a cause they believe in and the image of that sacrifice can be used to honor them. To remember them. To hold them up as our heroes.

The DCCC ad did not fall into this category. The DCCC ad was attempting to communicate a wasted life, a fool’s errand, a hopeless cause. Instead of holding up the sacrifice of these brave men and women as something to admire, the DCCC was attempting to use the images to show the opposite. It is when the image is used in opposition to what the people in the image clearly or likely believed in is when the image is being used for self centered reasons.

We use the images of 9-11 to remind us we have a debt to those we lost to make sure nothing like that happens again. Al Qaeda and the Islamo Fascists use the same images of 9-11 to rally their people to more blood letting. It is all in the message that is being wrapped up (sometimes sublimally) in the picture. So no, people who use 9-11 to remind us of what we have pledged to those who died at the hands of brutal animals are not in the same category as those who use the images of our dead to say we should give in to those same brutal animals and run from this fight.

Addendum: I had to end this post sooner than I wanted. The one observation LJStrata made was the 9-11 pictures do not show the dead, they show the act. I want to add this summary. The DCCC images were used to undermine the ideas and goals are soldiers died for. The 9-11 images do not undermine the ideas and goals the victims died for when used by the Reps. If they did, they would be more in line with how Al Qaeda uses those images in their propaganda against America.