9/11 is not like Washington's Birthday/Lincoln's Birthday.

You're not supposed to use them to promote your commercial enterprise.

A Wisconsin golf course — Tumbledown Trails — advertised a $9.11 special for 9/11. It was, understandably, not well received. It was, in fact, so poorly received that they're considering closing the place on 9/11 to protect employees from the unpleasant things people might say.

Considering war and death, we should object to Washington's Birthday/Lincoln's Birthday advertising. There is some criticism of that now and then, but not much, perhaps because they're from the somewhat distant past, perhaps because we commemorate them on their birthdays — or a day around their birthdays — and not on an anniversary of their suffering.

And then, there's just something about golf. That golf should be played when anything serious is happening!

I was just listening to the podcast of yesterday's Rush Limbaugh show, and he was going on about "Obama on Syria: Incoherent Incompetence -- or the Decline of America by Design?," riffing on a WSJ piece by Norman Podhoretz called "Obama's Successful Foreign Failure."

Podhoretz noted the puzzle of how "to characterize a president who declares war against what he calls a great evil demanding immediate extirpation and in the next breath announces that he will postpone taking action for at least 10 days -- and then goes off to play golf before embarking on a trip to another part of the world?"

Rush restates it, double stressing the role of golf: "Then he goes out and plays golf and plans another trip, then comes back, and then says, 'By the way, I'm not gonna do this unless Congress goes along with me,' and then goes and plays golf."

After a commercial break, Rush is back rereading Podhoretz, replete with "then goes off to play golf."

The same golf-is-disrespectful game was played against Bush, who allowed video like this to be captured...



... and of course it was used against him. He compensated for media hostility by giving up golf entirely, and even his giving up of golf was used against him.