I haven’t always loved every single MoveOn.org ad and/or initiative, but this one strikes me as a good idea.
Liberal activists are taking the fight over judges to the backyards of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) this week, running ads in the leaders’ home states asking them to repudiate televangelist Pat Robertson’s recent comments that federal judges are more dangerous to American democracy than terrorists.
As the latest salvo in the escalating partisan war over the federal judiciary’s power and Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees, the initial $50,000 ad buy — paid for by MoveOn.org’s political action committee — will run in Nashville, Tenn., Houston and Washington, D.C., on cable television starting today. MoveOn PAC officials said they hope to buy more ad time as their fundraising numbers for the project go up.
The ad script asks whether Frist and DeLay will “continue to pander to the radical fringe or will they have the guts to repudiate Pat Robertson and all the others who are threatening our federal judges?”
I think this is a winner on a variety of levels. First and foremost, Republican leaders have, for too long, cozied up to some radical characters that most Americans would find repulsive. It’s only fair to start asking these lawmakers to start repudiating the lunacy coming from their friends. If a Dem leader were hanging out with Ward Churchill, you better believe there’d be some ads calling on him or her to renounce the guy’s rantings.
Second, while Robertson’s recent lunacy on ABC’s “This Week” was a big hit on the blogs, most Americans probably didn’t see the interview or hear about Robertson’s belief that federal judges who fail to share his worldview are a greater threat to the fabric of America than Al Queda today, Nazis during WWII, and the Civil War. At a minimum, the ad will help get the word out about what the Republican base believes.
But while this is a solid ad, GOP critics should also be prepared to make other Republicans with close ties to Robertson a little uncomfortable as well.
For example, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), a long-time Robertson ally, recently announced he’d deliver a commencement address at Robertson’s Regent University. If Frist and DeLay should repudiate Robertson’s ratings, what in the world is Allen doing hanging out with Robertson in Virginia Beach?
Even as a noted political tip sheet identified Senator George Allen as the GOP presidential frontrunner for 2008, a Jewish group was taking a swipe at the Virginia Republican for agreeing to speak this weekend at the Rev. Pat Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia Beach.
The National Jewish Democratic Council called on Allen, who emerged as the frontrunner in The Hotline’s weekly “insider’s poll,” to distance himself from remarks made by Robertson on May 1 on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” Robertson, a prominent Christian conservative who ran for president in 1988, told ABC he stood by his earlier claim that an “out-of-control judiciary” poses “the most serious threat” in the country’s history, greater than the one posed by Al Qaeda today or by Nazi Germany more than half a century ago.
Robertson’s remarks brought an immediate condemnation from Democrats, including NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman, who also attempted to turn up the heat on Allen.
Forman stated in a press release, “George Allen has got to decide before he delivers the keynote address at Pat Robertson’s college: Does he agree with Robertson’s offensive and ridiculous claim that America’s judges pose a greater threat than the terrorists who murdered thousands of Americans on American soil?” He added, “The time has finally come for top Republicans like Allen to stop beating a path to the doors of the radical conservatives like Robertson who engage in the most odious and dangerous rhetoric.”
Allen is scheduled to appear at Robertson’s school this weekend. The senator, at a minimum, should be asked for this thoughts in response to Robertson’s controversial comments from last week.
If there’s any money left in MoveOn’s ad budget, how about a few spots in Virginia?