Alan Bernstein, The Houston Chronicle, February 26, 2008
A hellish fire menaces downtown Houston in congressional candidate Brian Klock’s new campaign billboard. Seen through a gun sight, a container ship and a petrochemical plant sit in the foreground as fat targets for terrorists.
And on Klock’s new Web site, actual news video shows the second hijacked plane slamming into the World Trade Center in New York.
Reaction was as mixed Monday as Klock’s use of fictional and factual death scenes as he brought the politics of 9/11 into the 10-candidate race for the Republican nomination against Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson.
“I don’t want to scare people,” said Klock, a Navy Reserve intelligence officer. “I want to make them aware and prepared (for terrorist attacks),” he said. “Showing Houston in flames is reminding them there is a threat,” he added. “What we wanted to do is project mayhem.”
Klock emphasized that he has experience reviewing intelligence about would-be terrorists capable of targeting NASA or Houston’s port and petrochemical industry, and that in Congress he would work to get extra protection for the Houston area.
Patriot Day?
Today is the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I notice on the calendar that it’s labeled as ‘Patriot Day.’ Patriot Day — when did that happen? ’9/11 Remembrance Day’ I could see, but ‘Patriot Day’? At any rate, as well as recalling the tragedy of that day that led to so many other tragedies, I will also remember, and hope most other Americans do, that the Bush Administration had nine months to prevent the attacks and bungled their responsibility to keep the nation safe, a vacationing Junior even ignoring a CIA Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” along with other warnings of imminent terrorist attacks. If Bush had paid attention and done his job, 3,000 Americans might still be among the living. That’s something to remember on Patriot Day.