It’s as if the network wants to be humiliated. There’s no other way to explain it.
Earlier this month, we learned that the Bush administration was launching a massive taxpayer-funded television ad campaign to promote its Medicare bill. Instead of using $9.5 million from the Health and Human Services budget to provide health care for people in need, the White House decided to launch an expensive ad campaign to “rebut criticism of the new Medicare law.”
Adding insult to injury, the ads contained patently false information. As the Center for American Progress noted:
The new Medicare ads urge citizens to call 1-800-MEDICARE to hear more about the new law. And in “Big Brother” style, when you call that number you have to actually say out loud “Medicare improvement” in order to get information. The information you then receive is filled with distortions. The hotline claims the new Medicare “is the same Medicare you have always counted on” – failing to disclose that the law includes provisions which try to force more seniors into private HMOs. The hotline claims that seniors will be able to find “immediate savings between 10% to 15% from a new drug discount card program.” But the cards, which were written into the bill by one of President Bush’s closest business associates, actually do not guarantee any savings at all.
CBS, which had drawn criticism for failing to broadcast a MoveOn.org ad about the deficit, was under fire again for agreeing to air the administration’s obviously deceptive commercial.
Initially, the network did the right thing. After congressional Democrats asked the General Accounting Office to investigate whether the administration was misusing tax dollars with the ad, CBS pulled the administration’s commercial from the air, saying it “violated our longstanding policy on advocacy advertising.” Many of us, even MoveOn, were pleased with the network’s swift action.
Right up until CBS changed its mind again.
While just last week CBS spokespersons said they’d wait until the completion of the GAO inquiry before revisiting the issue, the network said the opposite yesterday, announcing the ad was going back onto the airwaves.
What a fiasco. First the network plans to run a docudrama critical of Reagan, then it caves to GOP criticism and pulls the show from the schedule. Then CBS plans to run an accurate ad about the deficit during the Super Bowl, but rejects it because it amounts to “advocacy.” Lastly, CBS decides to air, then pull, then air again a dishonest “advocacy” ad from the Bush administration.
Whatever credibility the network had is now gone.