because its in poor taste. you do not commemorate the anniversary of the death of three thousand innocent people by building twin towers of coca cola to sell.
Nobody above the age of twelve is truly innocent. We have all done fucked up shit in our lives. If you mean civilians, then say civilians. Millions of civilians die each day, it's part of life. 9/11 was terrible because of the way people died. They suffered, spent several minutes breathing in smoke unable to escape, and some people even jumped from the window .
I disagree with the mattress commercial because it was awful, but the 9/11 display wasn't in poor taste at all. Poor taste would be them trying to extract humor from the event, which the 9/11 display didn't do.
And if we're going to be truly serious, we'd forgive someone we like, or someone who is really funny for making a 9/11 joke (like that Norm clip). If it was Sarah Silverman it wouldn't be poor taste at all.
We're all up in arms about the fat lady because a) she's fat, b) we don't like her, c) she's not funny, d) it's a fucking mattress commercial, e) there are Arab guys we hate in it, and f) she isn't funny. It's human nature to excuse the mistakes of people we like, and to be overly critical of those we don't.
I'm not making excuses for the fat bitch. She should have known better...
I just don't like how there's an arbitrary amount of time that has to expire to make fun of tragedies, and that there's an arbitrary public opinion that we can let some groups of people (politicians/professional comedians) get away with it, but god forbid if a normal citizen does it!