10:15 AM MST on Tuesday, August 31, 2004

By DOUG J. SWANSON / The Dallas Morning News

NEW YORK – The great scar in the ground at Liberty and Church streets functions as a tourist destination, historical site, memorial shrine and tribute to sacrifice. This week, it also takes on the enhanced role, for good or ill, of political symbol.

When Republicans selected New York for their national convention, they also got Ground Zero as a prime backdrop. It wasn't accidental. Many supporters of George W. Bush believe that the defining moment of his presidency came only days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

"Any great leader has a point where their character is most revealed," said Mike Cox, the Republican attorney general of Michigan.

Mr. Cox said that point came for Mr. Bush when the president stood in the twin towers' rubble and vowed, "The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." That, Mr. Cox said, evoked images of President Franklin Roosevelt addressing Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

But where some see inspiration, others find exploitation.

"I don't think it's right," said Lydia Vickers, 52, of Tallahassee, Fla. "President Bush should not use the World Trade Center."

Both Ms. Vickers and Mr. Cox came to Ground Zero on Monday – in separate groups with quite different agendas. Mr. Cox is a delegate to the convention. Ms. Vickers traveled to New York to march with protesters.

They joined hundreds of others Monday who took pictures, read commemorative plaques and stared at the 15-acre site where 2,749 people died.

Some visitors gazed in somber contemplation. Others prayed as a sidewalk flutist played "Amazing Grace."

"It's shocking. It's incredible," said Carlos Del Gado, 30, visiting from Venezuela.

Denise Walker, a 25-year-old Indiana law student, began to weep. "It just brings everything back," she said.

She also was upset, she said, that Mr. Bush has talked about the attack for what she sees as political purposes. "He's used 9-11 inappropriately," she said.

Just a few subway stops uptown, convention speeches were beginning at Madison Square Garden. Many of the Republican speakers this week, in the first GOP convention in New York, will invoke Sept. 11.

That's not only logical, Mr. Cox said, but honorable.

"It would be shameful if they didn't talk about it," he said.

Ms. Vickers sees darker motives. "I think they're just trying to keep Americans afraid," she said.

Mr. Bush will not visit Ground Zero this week, and convention organizers put together no official trips for delegates.

"It's bigger than any of us," former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, "and it sort of controls anybody's desire to want to exploit it."

That doesn't mean, however, that image-crafters will avoid the site.

From afar, Ground Zero leaves a giant gap in an otherwise packed skyline. When Vice President Dick Cheney made a campaign appearance at Ellis Island on Sunday to praise the president's response to terrorism, handlers positioned his lectern so that cameras showed that vista behind him.

Up close, almost nothing remains of the great pile of ruins that smoked for weeks as workers searched first for survivors and then bodies. One notable piece still standing is the huge, much-photographed cross of rusted beams recovered by firefighters.

Little politicizing intrudes there now, with only a few exceptions. Joe Piazza, a Staten Island retiree, likes to pose for tourists' pictures in his red, white and blue outfit that includes copious "Bush for President" buttons and stickers.

His glasses have small, battery-operated windshield wipers, and around his neck hangs a wall clock. "I don't want to be late for the election," he said.

Anyone peering past Mr. Piazza's shoulder could see the windows of a Liberty Street building overlooking Ground Zero where hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and a local artist have displayed their own messages. "OIL WAR," says one. "NO MORE LIES," says another.

Talk of Mr. Bush and the twin towers site inevitably leads to discussion of the war in Iraq.

"I'm glad we have a president who's doing his best to fight terror throughout the world," said Sandra Samkavitz, 69, a convention attendee from suburban Philadelphia.

Ms. Walker, the Indiana law student, sees it differently: "Where I'm from, everyone believes 9-11 was justification for the Iraq war, which is stupid."

While official New York has welcomed the convention enthusiastically, many in the city have expressed ambivalence.

"I was really appalled at first, but I got used to the idea," said Irma Rusk, 80, a Manhattan resident who visited Ground Zero on Monday. "I do not want us to be terribly unwelcoming."

Early on, many area residents speculated that bringing the convention here would make the city a terrorism target again.

But Ground Zero is a reminder, Mrs. Rusk said, that the city faces the risk of terrorism with or without the Republicans.

"Ever since 9-11, most of us living in New York have an uneasy feeling," she said. "I do think, sooner or later, something will happen again."

E-mail dswanson@dallasnews.com

A survey of 339 people who lost a loved one in the Sept. 11 attacks found that:

More blamed former President Bill Clinton than President Bush for 9-11.

More than three-quarters objected to the use of images from 9-11 in TV ads for political campaigns.

More than half said Mr. Bush should visit Ground Zero while he is in New York this week.

Almost half said they disapproved of the way Mr. Bush was handling his job.

Roughly equal numbers said they had confidence in Mr. Bush and John Kerry to make the decisions on fighting terrorism, though more expressed "a lot" of confidence in Mr. Bush than in Mr. Kerry.

Note: Because the total population of victims' relatives cannot be determined, the group cannot be sampled with the statistical precision of a poll. For that reason, no margin of error could be calculated for the study, which was conducted Aug. 14-24 by The New York Times.