Posted on 06/30/2004 12:23:26 PM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry is criticizing President Bush for featuring Nazi images in an ad on his official reelection campaign website, but the images in question come from an ad featured on the website of liberal advocacy group.
Phil Singer, spokesman for the Kerry campaign, said using Nazi images is "simply wrong"" by any campaign, politician or party. He said it's not only insensitive but diminishes Bush's credibility as president.
"The fact that George Bush thinks it's appropriate to use images of Adolf Hitler in his campaign raises serious questions about his fitness to spend another four years in the White House," said Singer in a statement.
"Adolf Hitler slaughtered millions of innocent people and has no place in a campaign that is supposed to be about the future and hope of this nation," added Singer.
"The President's use of these images during a month that evoked the memory of World War II is remarkably insensitive to the sacrifices of the millions of people who lost their lives during Hitler's reign of terror," he said.
The Anti-Defamation League also expressed disappointment with the Bush campaign's use of the Nazi images.
"Using images of Hitler and terminology from the Nazi regime in campaign attacks is offensive and demeaning to the memory of the six million and others who died in the Holocaust," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the ADL, in a press release.
But this is not the first time the intermingling of Nazi images and politics were found on a website.
Earlier this year, Moveon.org organized an ad contest, and one of the ads that were submitted and posted on the website for judging portrayed President George Bush as Adolf Hitler. The winner of the contest would win air time during the president's 2004 state of the union address.
A spokesman for the Bush campaign told CNSNews.com the images on their website serve a different purpose than that of Moveon.org.
"It is a web-video that we sent to our supporters so they can see examples of the kind of hateful and vitriolic rhetoric that we have seen from John Kerry's surrogates," said Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel.
"We are simply showing our supporters what the president's opponents have had to say about him and comparing that kind of hateful language to the president's positive optimistic vision," he added.
The ad begins with the words, "The following video contains remarks made by and images from ads sponsored by Kerry supporters. John Kerry has denounced our use of these ads attacking the President. He has not denounced liberal supporters like Al Gore, George Soros, and many others who have made speeches comparing the President to Adolf Hitler."
The ad continues with the words: "The Faces of John Kerry's Democratic Party - The Coalition of the Wild-Eyed." Former Vice President Al Gore is shown yelling, "How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein's torture prison."
The video then shows the words: "What were war crimes in 1945 - foreign policy in 2003, sponsored by Moveon.org." That is followed by a collage of video featuring various liberals.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is featured saying, "I want my country back," followed by filmmaker Michael Moore saying, "We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons." Then Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt is shown saying, "This president is a miserable failure."
The words "God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them" are shown over top of a picture of Adolf Hitler while Hitler is heard speaking in German. The picture of Hitler disappears and is replaced by a picture of Bush, while the words "...and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did," are centered on the screen. That portion of the video is clearly marked "images from a MoveOn.org ad."
The ad continues with footage of Gore yelling, "He betrayed this country. He played on our fears." Then Kerry is shown, saying "Today ... George Bush will lay off your camel, tax your shovel, kick your [bleep] and tell you there is no Promised Land."
The ad concludes with the words: "This is not a time for pessimism and rage..." Then a picture of Bush is featured, with the words: "It's a time for optimism, steady leadership, and progress."
Both parties have been advised by the Anti-Defamation League to refrain from using the Nazi images.
"After a proliferation of references to Hitler and the Nazis began appearing in the wind-up to the Presidential election season, we called on the Democratic and Republican parties to refrain from adopting Nazi imagery as a political attack tool," said Foxman in a statement.
"We had hoped then that both parties had heard our concerns. For us, this is neither a Democratic nor a Republican issue, but rather a matter of respecting the feelings of those who could be offended by such images, including Jewish Holocaust survivors and their families."
See Earlier Story:
RNC Takes Moveon.org to Task Over Bush/Hitler Ads (Jan. 5, 2004)
E-mail a news tip to Shannon Augustus.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
The ad is still up. I just viewed it.
HOW DARE THEY USE THE SAME IMAGES WE USED...ummm
One of the huge successes of the left has been to rewrite history to the point of Nazi's being right wing.
The truth is they were nationalists, but they were national socialists.
In the history of the world since 1900. It has been socialist/communist's governments that have slaughtered their own citizens. This has never happened under a democratically elected political system.
This add correctly identifies Kerry/gore/kennedy/howard as being in the mold of Hitler.
Kerry doesn't demagog too well he is too monosylabic and unenergized but he does have a Marxist Poet as the soul of his camapign.
LOL!
It's still right here:
http://georgewbush.com/News/MultiMedia/VideoPlayer.aspx?ID=901&T=2
Excellent. I found it, too.
I see they've added a "disclaimer" pointing out that the scary imagery was generated by leftists. Hopefully, this will help the stupid leftist spokesmen to understand what they're looking at.
Fight on, W!
I couldn't get it to save to my HD, though.
What?! A different purpose? No, this implies equivalence between Moveon.org using Hitler and Bush using Hitler. There is no equivalence. The Bush commercial shows what Kerry supporters are saying about Bush! Our side better stop with the nice long-winded explanations and emphatically tell these reporters how outraged Bush is about the extremists in the democrat party. The gist should not be to defend the ad but attack the extremists. We should also be on the offensive and attack the Kerry campaign as too stupid to even realize what is going on. Attack, attack, attack. Then attack some more.
Oh that's just ... rich. I mean, really rich. What will the Dimocrats think of next?
Comlbs was bawling about this last night on FOX. He ignored the fact that the Hitler image was taken from a RAT ad. What typical stinking RAT hypocrisy
I predicted months ago that this would be the dirtiest, non-issue driven campaign on both sides in Presidential history. I'm being proven right thusfar.
Bush didn't know what he was doing. He just thought Kerry and Moveon.org had run out of money and couldn't afford to advertise this clever ad they developed. So being a compassionate conservative Bush thought he would pay to let the public see it anyway. Since it was so good and all the rat-people seemed to like it.
It's still amazing how dishonest Democrats and liberals are. You idiots are the one's that ran the ad! Now Bush is at fault for criticizing your ad as innappropriate? Ridiculous.
Foxman is a lying hypocrite who doesn't deserve to be allowed to clean toilets for the brave Israelis who are fighting the newest genocidal menace to the Jews - the Islamofascists.
Have a nice cup of STFU, Foxman.
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