Free Republic

WASHINGTON - While politicians decry negative advertising and personal attacks, the bottom line is that such tactics often work. People may not quite recall the specific controversy, but negative campaigning can still raise a question mark in voters' minds about a candidate and prove hard to overcome. Attack campaigns, such as those by outside groups in the current presidential campaign, "are bad for the system," President Bush (news - web sites) said on Monday, including a television commercial questioning rival John Kerry (news - web sites)'s military service in Vietnam. No matter that Kerry and his supporters have claimed the...

Saudis try to prove war against terror is their fight By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 04 December 2002 Saudi Arabia has launched an unprecedented public relations offensive in America to counter accusations that it is a financial accomplice of global terrorism, saying it has imposed a host of measures to control charitable donations from the Kingdom and clamp down on money laundering. At a press conference at the Saudi embassy yesterday, Crown Prince Abdullah's foreign policy adviser said the "unfounded charges" circulating in America that Riyadh had failed to co-operate in the war against terrorism had reached the point where...