Posted on 11/26/2003 8:13:25 AM PST by ChewedGum
Politics is a blood sport. If you cannot take the heat, it is best to avoid the political arena altogether. The level of intensity and the ferocity of the attacks increase with the level of the office. For months, the Democratic Presidential candidates have been fighting to represent their party next November. Their attacks have not been limited to their current opponents; they have also taken every possible opportunity to take the offensive against the current President.
Here are some examples from the September 4, 2003 Democratic Presidential debate:
Joe Lieberman
No planning was done by this administration. I believe it's because this is an administration divided within itself, and the president as commander in chief has not brought it together.
Richard Gephardt
This president doesn't get it. He's a unilateralist. He thinks he knows all the answers. He doesn't respect others
Richard Gephardt
But this president has to lead, and he is not leading. He's a miserable failure on this issue, and he must be replaced in the election.
John Kerry
I think there are several levels of failure of leadership here. The first is that the president has failed altogether to share with the American people the truth--the truth about the cost, the truth about the reasons and the way in which he is going to protect the troops and the interests of the United States of America.
Howard Dean
Most middle-class people never got a tax cut from George Bush, and I'm sure they'd rather have health insurance for everybody than the $100 they got from George Bush's tax cut.
Each of these statements is opinion which some Americans will agree with and some will not. It is just part of the campaign. For the last six months, each candidate has been critical of the current President in their speeches, debates and television ads. For the same duration, the President has said very little in response to these attacks.
On Friday, November 21st, he did respond with this television advertisement. The ad shows excerpts from the President's most recent State of the Union address in the background while superimposing the following messages in the foreground:
- Strong and Principled Leadership
- Some are now attacking the President for attacking Terrorists
- Some call us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others
- Call Congress Now - Tell them to support the President's policy of preemptive self defense
It is notable that the commercial does not single out any single opponent. It focuses on terrorism and emphasizes the President's policies toward that evil. It contrasts those positions with those proclaimed by his opponents. It is not a personal attack, unlike the debate quotes mentioned earlier, and should resonate with those who agree with the President. It will be ignored by those who do not agree with him.
Or maybe not...The response of several Democratic leaders has been anything but passive. Tom Daschel described the ad as "repulsive and outrageous" and declared that the Republican Party needed to pull the ad. Wesley Clark felt that it was exploiting 9/11 for political purposes. Ted Kennedy said it was an attempt to "stifle dissent". (Which Mr. Kennedy feels is "a basic part of what our whole society is about.")
Does anyone else find a little hypocrisy in these demands that the ad be pulled? Their own name calling and dubious accusations are merely politics as usual, but a single (tame) advertisement that stresses the issue of terrorism is considered unfair. It is not possible to avoid the fact that 9/11/2001 did happen. No American desires anything like the horror of that day to ever be repeated. That was the point where terrorism emerged as a serious campaign issue. The problem is not that the President has chosen to address this issue; the problem is that the other party continues to ignore it.
One other very minor point: the speech used in the commercial is actually addressing the issue of Iraq. The same individuals who have claimed over and over that there is no connection between 9/11 (Al Queda) and Iraq are now declaring that an advertisement clearly looking at the Iraq liberation and reconstruction is "politicizing 9/11". It is very kind of these nice gentlemen to connect the dots for the rest of us ignorant Americans.
It appears that the Republican Party is going to move forward and run the ads, but now a new "controversy" has erupted. It seems that the audio from the speech was digitally enhanced. In the speech, Bush stumbled when he said the word vial, and that was cleaned up in the ad version. Now the opposition is planning on making political hay by pointing out the RNC had to doctor its own ad.
Never mind the fact that the Democrats made an advertisement earlier this year that featured an excerpt from the same state of the Union Address. Their excerpt used the partial quote "...Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." as evidence that Bush lied. They purposely neglected to include the first six words of the sentence - "The British government has learned that..." - because the entire quote did not line up with the point they were trying to make. (Who lied?)
The terrorism ad alteration merely removed a pause and clarified the sound of the word "vial". The transcript from the original speech and the transcript from the excerpted quotes remain identical, yet the Democrats continue to look for a "there" there:
Douglas E. Schoen, a Democratic pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton, said that making an alteration in the State of the Union address was different.
"The distinction I would make," Mr. Schoen said, "is what the president says at the State of the Union is an essential part of the historical record."
With all the fuss being made, this ad must truly frighten the Democratic Party leadership. It is quite ironic that these same protest keep the ad and the issue of terrorism front and center. As far as the complaints about improper editing, any candidate who meets the following critiera is hereby granted the right to protest the modified ad:
You have never had any touch-up work done on a campaign or personal photo and have never worn make-up for any television appearance or debate.
Granted, neither action changes who the candidate is or what they stand for. These are just actions taken to help make the candidate a little more presentable...which is all the RNC was doing when they 'touched-up' the audio in this ad.
They could play Clark the Warrior, or Clark the Peacenik, or Clark the Metrosexual, or Clark the crazy Uncle who showed up for Thanksgiving.
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