Last week's Republican National Convention sparked passionate debate over the qualifications and treatment of Sarah Palin as well as John McCain's poaching the message of "change" from the Democrats the week prior. Possibly lost in the shuffle was the relatively small amount of airplay given to the 9/11 attacks, especially when compared to how central a theme they were throughout the previous RNC held here in New York. Even Rudy Giuliani didn't spend a great deal of his speaking time hearkening back to 9/11 in comparison with his usual rhetoric.
However, on the final night of the convention (themed "Peace"), Republicans did show a video billed as a "Tribute to 9/11" that aired during the 8:00 hour. The video begins by linking the Iran Hostage Crisis to the 9/11 attacks and then launches into a great deal of graphic imagery from the day of the attacks before its narrator tells us, "This is a war that America will win. We will have a president who knows how."
The video was aired live by CNN and MSNBC. (Ironically, Fox News did not broadcast it live because they were playing Bill O'Reilly's interview with Barack Obama.) Shortly thereafter on MSNBC, a somber Keith Olbermann apologized "as somebody who lost a few friends there" for airing such a graphic video and said that, "It is a subject of great pain for many of us still and it was probably not appropriate to be shown." Those remarks appear to have gotten Olbermann removed from the anchor chair for the rest of MSNBC's election coverage.
