Republicans Are Getting Buyer's Remorse

Their national convention venue, New York City, is looking less and less like the grand idea they envisioned. By the time it happens, they probably won't want to travel any further than the Hotel Pennsylvania across the street from MSG. no less Ground Zero. From CNN:

Bush's re-election effort is plagued with questions on whether his administration could have prevented the attacks, and holding the convention just minutes away from the World Trade Center, where nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001, could make matters worse, they said.

"It was the wrong place to go from the beginning," veteran Republican political consultant Roger Stone said.

"They wanted to highlight the president's strong leadership in the days after 9/11, which includes the conduct of the war, and now that is going to be a contentious, hard-fought issue," he said, adding that, "The backdrop here has the potential to dominate the story."

When the party chose New York for the convention scheduled to begin August 30, officials painted the move as a way to show off a city rebuilding from the attacks, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Bush White House.

But that picture has soured. The war in Iraq is deteriorating with some of the bloodiest fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden whose al Qaeda group is blamed for the September 11 attacks remains at large. And, some families of September 11 victims accuse Republicans of trying to politically exploit the tragedy.