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Posted on 04/07/2004 7:14:12 AM PDT by optimistically_conservative
WASHINGTON -- An arm of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org is airing a hard-hitting TV ad, set to begin today, that depicts a fictional President Bush telling the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that he was "obsessed" with Iraq.
With the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, appearing Thursday before the Sept. 11 panel and Bush scheduled to speak privately to the commission later, the ad uses an impersonator to put words into the president's mouth.
"Before 9/11, I was obsessed with Iraq," says a Texas-twinged voice as the screen shows an unflattering still photo of the president at a microphone. "Then I used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. So now we're less safe than we were before."
Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn's political action committee, which is the ad's sponsor, said Tuesday, "There's no likelihood that the people are going to think that this is something the president has actually said."
The word "imitator" is clearly written on the screen, he pointed out.
Pariser conceded that he could not provide documentation for all of the ad's conclusions, which are at the center of a heated foreign policy debate.
"Obviously, I'm not a member of the administration," Pariser said. "But it appears, feels fairly clear to us, if you look at what the reporters who have been close to this have been saying and if you look at what the administration has been saying, that there was a will to go into Iraq and that that was seized after 9/11."
The ad quotes former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke, who told the 9/11 Commission, "By invading Iraq, the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."
Pariser said Clarke's critique was sufficient. "If you can't trust a guy who was the counterterrorism expert appointed by President Bush, where does that leave us?" the MoveOn official said.
It is the second time the anti-Bush group has used Clarke's testimony in a TV spot. An earlier ad drew an objection from Clarke, who said he did not want to be part of the partisan campaign, but the group responded that it plans to continue to use his statements.
The president's re-election team declined to comment on the specifics of the latest MoveOn attack.
"As the president says, anger is not an agenda," said Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel of the ad's message.
Focusing instead on the group itself, Stanzel said, "These bitter partisans represent a shadow Democratic Party that is illegally using 'soft money' to influence a presidential election."
The Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging that private political groups that accept "soft money" — unlimited donations from individuals, corporations or labor unions — are violating campaign finance laws.
The Internet-based MoveOn's political action committee accepts only federally regulated funds and has collected $1 million in donations, averaging $44 each. The group spent $300,000 on its first ad featuring Clarke's testimony and plans to spend $200,000 to run its new ad this week on CNN.
A sister group, MoveOn Voter Fund, accepts soft money from wealthy donors such as George Soros and has spent more than $10 million on political ads to criticize the Bush administration.
The key is going to be getting this out, because the NY Times will do their best to bury this one.
Oh, so why did you show a photo of Bush and hire an impersonator?
This is hugh, folks. This is bigger than the Bush=Nazi ad. Moveon is out and out deceiving the American public, and we can discredit that bunch forever if we work this.
Typical. When asked to back up his contention, he stammers that it "feels fairly clear." Yeah, that's the sort of factual authority I can get behind.
It perfectly illustrates to anybody with a brain who the actual liars are. And anybody without a brain was going to vote for Kerry anyway.
It could be a dumb move because Bush has had high favorability scores.
But increasingly, folks are questioning whether he's been good on post-war Iraq and the econonmy, and they may question whether he's got a credibility problem on dealing with the 9/11 inquiries and reasons for going to war on Iraq.
It's a gamble, in that it could push Bush lower in public opinion or have a backlash. It seems ironic that right after the 300,000+ jobs report came out making the economy less of an issue, Iraq blows up.
You'd think Teddy and the DNC had a hotline to Zarqawi, Sadr and al-Douri.
I'd almost bet the administration is preparing an ad attacking F'ing on the comments he made yesterday about rolling back the Bush tax cuts.
Show what F'ing really stands for -- one of two tax and spend liberal senators from Massachusetts, who want to spend your money on more give away government programs.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
In all seriousness, Kennedy's statements against Bush, gleefully published by the liberal mainstream media IS a hotline to the terrorists. There is no longer any such thing as "local news."
Kennedy feeds the desires of the terrorists and as such, is an accessory to any soldier's death that comes after his statements. The media's frontpage publishing of the Fallujah corpses directly adds to the terrorists power by wearing down the American psyche. Presumably, the NYTimes and Democrats are doing it for the election, but their actions are putting our soldiers in harm's way by strengthening the terrorist's resolve. Other than the addresses of their home offices and language in the crawl screens, how does the US liberal media differ from Al Jazzera? Spain added to this a great deal.
As long as my senators continue to thwart the will of the CinC, and tear down the US economy and will to fight the good fight, I will consider them no better than the terrorists. Despite their best protestations, the DO NOT support the troops when their words get them killed.
In my eyes, they are accessories to the fact at a bare minimum, and they pretend not to see it.
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