MoveOn.org drives the GOP over the edge

September 19, 2007

I understand that Republicans would rather talk about a controversial newspaper ad than Iraq policy. I even understand why the right wants to demonize an effective and successful liberal activist organization.

But the problem in the wake of last week’s “Betray Us” ad from MoveOn.org is that the GOP just doesn’t know when to quit. They saw an opportunity, took it, and scored a few cheap political points. Instead of, ahem, moving on, conservatives keep going to the well, to the point that it’s now kind of embarrassing.

Last week, Rudy Giuliani suggested MoveOn shouldn’t have free-speech rights. John McCain suggested MoveOn be thrown out of the United States. This week, the Vice President is not only attacking the group; he’s also alleging some kind of conspiracy involving the New York Times. McCain has now incorporated an enlarged poster version of the “Betray Us” ad into his stump speech, and brings his new favorite prop everywhere he goes.

It’s reached the point that the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee wants to launch a congressional investigation into whether the NYT violated election law by selling the ad at a reduced rate. Seriously.

Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) asked committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Tuesday to convene a hearing on the issue, saying that any rate change “for political advertising could constitute an unlawful campaign contribution.”

According to media accounts, the “open rate” for the ad should have been $181,000. The liberal group said it paid $65,000.

“The difference between the ‘open rate’ and the actual rate paid by MoveOn.org raises the possibility that The New York Times, as a media company not subject to campaign-finance restrictions for its own messages, unlawfully subsidized the message of MoveOn.org by giving it a discounted rate for its advertisement,” Davis said.

Now, in the broader context, Davis is running for the Senate, so he has to go out of his way to demonstrate his capacity for nuttiness to the GOP base, but this just isn’t healthy. Criticizing the ad is one thing; letting the ad drive the Republican Party into madness is something else.

In case there’ any lingering confusion here, the charges have no merit.

Steph Jespersen, director of advertising acceptability at The Times, said that accepting an ad “does not in any way reflect the official position of The New York Times nor do we need to agree or endorse our advertiser’s message or opinion.” He said that the advertising department accepts ads from across the political spectrum and accepted the MoveOn ad, because it met the department’s standards. The group was charged the paper’s normal rate for stand-by ads.

“We only decline or alter an opinion ad when the message is clearly discriminatory, illegal, libelous or hate speech,” Mr. Jespersen said in an online conversation with Times readers.

He said in a telephone interview later that in the MoveOn ad, the phrase “betray us” was posed as a question and was therefore not perceived as libelous.

He also said in his online conversation that the advertising department accepted the ad “because it is our ongoing desire to keep our advertising columns as open as possible to the public, which we believe is a First Amendment responsibility.”

MoveOn has said it paid $65,000 for the ad. While The Times does not discuss its fees for specific ads, it has said it charges $65,000 for full-page, black-and-white “advocacy” ads that run on a seven-day “standby” basis. That means that while the client can express a preference that the ad run on a certain day, there is no guarantee that it will. If a client specifies the day, the cost is higher: $181,000 with an 8 percent discount for a full-page ad, or about $167,000.

“The lower cost of such ads reflects the flexibility that gives us,” Mr. Jespersen said of the seven-day window. “Any political or advocacy group calling up today to request a standby ad would be quoted the same rate that MoveOn.org paid.”

Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate who is among those who criticized the MoveOn ad, paid the same rate for his own advocacy ad that ran in the Friday editions of The Times. […]

Critics have also complained that MoveOn received favored treatment because its ad was put in a “top spot” in the newspaper. The ad ran on page 25 of the A section; Mr. Giuliani’s ad ran on Page 9 of the A section.

Republicans really want to waste time and taxpayer money on this? Isn’t this the kind of stupidity that helped drive the GOP out of the majority in the first place?

Reasonable people think differently than Republicans. Reasonable people also don’t think we’re kicking ass in Iraq. Republicans live in an alternate world. I wish they would move there completely.

  • The media exposure now being given to this ad is worth $65,000 many times over. Let them tire themselves out jumping up and down over minor issues such as this. It makes their priorities–as well as their abject fear of free speech–more obvious, which cannot help them except with those already hypnotized, and may even keep them out of other mischief.

  • So, this is what Tom Davis’ constituents want him to be spending his time on? Seems like a poor choice of issues when you’re facing a possible Senate race, but perhaps the Republicans are more interested in shooting themselves in the foot than addressing substantive issues. Free country – for now – so, their choice. If it’s a bad one, oh, well…

    Maybe what we need to go along with a terror alert system that is raised and lowered depending on how much of a political boost the Republicans need, is a companion system that measures the level of ridiculousness and hypocrisy of the right-wing; something tells me there will be some relationship between the two.

    The world gets wackier by the day.

  • Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate who is among those who criticized the MoveOn ad, paid the same rate for his own advocacy ad that ran in the Friday editions of The Times.

    I suppose Davis didn’t ask for a hearing on Rudolf’s advertisement –after all, Rudolf is running for dictator President.

    military…..goood

    libruls…….baaad

  • Let the GOP keep it coming. Constant straw man attacks have numbed the American electorate. You cannot expect to constantly rachet up peoples emotions over wedge issues for 3 decades and then not expect to pay a price. What has happened is that the republicans have lost the ability to actually debate policy. They have spent so much time craving and abusing power, they no longer have any people who are capable of actually working on real issues. This has become glaringly obvious once they took both houses and the presidency. Americans have learned the hard way that the GOP cannot govern. All that they can do is attack, and people seem to be finally waking up from their malaise and noticing this as well.

  • Add a new Republican mental illness: MoveOn Derangement Syndrome.

    It will go well with their Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

  • “Add a new Republican mental illness: MoveOn Derangement Syndrome.”
    “It will go well with their Clinton Derangement Syndrome.”

    Ironically, MoveOn.org is named MoveOn as a reference to Clinton obsession. So, in reality obsession with MoveOn is still Clinton obsession by proxy.

    When I line up my priorities for the leaders of this country I definately put pricing equality in NTY political ads way above global war, economics,and environmental disaster. This is right up there with legislating virginity and making church mandatory.

  • letting the ad drive the Republican Party into madness is something else.

    Yes. It is a godsend. Let them continue to tear themselves asunder. I’m buying my popcorn at Costco for this occasion.

  • It’s reached the point that the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee wants to launch a congressional investigation…

    It seems like only yesterday that John Boehner chided the Democrats for all of their politically-motivated investigations and urged them to get back to doing the people’s business.

  • It simply demonstrates that Democrats are spineless, or have no stomach for a fight. Did Democrats call for Robert Novak to be driven through the streets in a tumbrel with uneven wheels, and pelted with offal before being relieved of his head, after he deliberately blew Valerie Plame’s cover and possibly that of every agent to whom she’d ever spoken? They did not. How about whoever in the U.S. government it was who tapped Hans Blix’s phone at the UN when the WMD frenzy was reaching its climax, and circulated the rumour he was a homosexual? Was that individual sought by every resource, caught and disemboweled in Times Square at a picnic convened for the purpose? You know better.

    Seriously, the Republicans are warming to this one because the target is identifiable. They know exactly who said it, unlike the months of coy dancing by Novak and the unnamed rumour-monger described above. They are baffled and frustrated by the party’s inability to field a candidate who appeals on any level beyond his looks or his smell, and frightened by the prospect of losing any ability to influence either house. They’re like cattle who scent fire in the barn.

    Anyone who wants the country to be led by such bellowing sociopaths is similarly certifiable.

  • The Republican bullies are back. I think they want to use this as an example so that other newspapers will think twice before they accept any anti-war, anti-Bush or anti-Republican advertising.

  • This is a dress rehearsal for the ’08 presidential campaign. The GOP is going to latch onto some piece of utter trivia, tie it to Hillary in some bizarre way, and make it the #1 issue in the campaign for weeks if not months. Remember Willie Horton and flag-burning in ’88. Remember the Swift Boats. It can be done. And the MSM will absolutely go along.

  • What you are seeing is the typical manufacturing of a non-controversy by the right-wing message machine. What’s different is that no one’s falling for it.

    I know a fair number of right wingers, and I know what they’re angry about before they do. When the war was a failure, talk radio started talking about immigration, now that’s all you ever hear — Mexico wants to annex Texas! Bush is failing because of… IMMIGRATION!!!! Why are we talking about Iraq when there are ILLEGALS CROSSING OUR BORDERS!!!!!

    Now, it’s MoveOn. It’s like the wave, where a few people in the stadium bop up, and it reverberates around the entire bleachers. Kind of interesting to see it crash when it reaches the shore of the public.

  • Did Democrats call for Robert Novak to be driven through the streets in a tumbrel with uneven wheels, and pelted with offal before being relieved of his head, after he deliberately blew Valerie Plame’s cover and possibly that of every agent to whom she’d ever spoken?

    Would we have even heard about it if they did?

  • Heh. All the wingnuts are in their primary bubble-world, screeching about the evil Move On, and outside the bubble the American people are saying “Geez, the wingnuts sure do hate that “Move On” group, whoever the hell that is.”

    Since the average American thinks wingnuts are dangerous idiots, Move On is getting free advertising and a bump in their reputation.

    I say keep it up, idiots. Screech your lungs out.

  • Since the average American thinks wingnuts are dangerous idiots, Move On is getting free advertising and a bump in their reputation. -Racerx

    And here I thought the average American thought the Constitution established a Christian nation. Maybe you live in a different average America than I do.

    Or, quite possibly, I’m jaded into unrecoverable cynicism.

  • MoveOn has hit the exact nerve that needed plucking. I am, after all, fairly certain that I am not the only individual in these discussions who has noticed that the Reskunklican assault on MoveOn has clearly expressed one mountainous truth—that the Iraq War, rather than being for the defense of the Homeland, is being waged for political reasons—and political reasons only.

    The Reskunklican needs the Iraq War to help hide the overwhelming fact that, more than six years after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Grand-Old-Polecat “scary-thing” machine has yet to apprehend the architect of this most dastardly act.

    Or do these pathectic insults to the American common sense expect us to look away from the fact that they could not even wage a successful war against those who attacked us?

    I hereby name all Reskunklicans, and their smelly little noisemaking machines—COWARDS OF THE LOWEST ORDER.

  • They’re just trying to intimidate the NYT into not taking any more advocacy ads, from progressive causes.

    They already did this with outdoor advertising. I remember in 2002 and 2004 and even 2006, hearing of groups like MoveOn trying desperately to GIVE MONEY to outdoor advertising companies, to buy some billboards. The billboard owners (largely ClearChannel at the time) just refused to take the money! They refused the ads.

    That’s what they’re trying to do: to shut down the free speech of groups like MoveOn, by intimidating the newspaper so much, that the newspaper and other media will simply refuse to run any progressive ads that are actually effective.

    This by the way is the same way that the wingnuts got science purged from our schools. They make life such hell for the school board and textbook publishers, that they just cave in, and try to avoid the hassle.

    The answer is to fight fire with fire, and to dump a 20-gallon drum of whup-ass on the media whenever the wingnuts do anything. Blog swarms! More blog swarms please!

  • Many people do not here the ‘correction’ or read the ‘explanation’ and are walking around believing and repeating Cheney’s claim of a sub-standardized rate. Cheney knew it was a lie when he said it…and said it anyway thinking he could always act mis informed later if pushed on the issue. How is it that we have seen Cheney lie so much that now we just accept that he does so without hounding him on it when he does? He should have been impeached long ago. Thanks Pelosi…for standing in the way of justice and accountability…This is what you will always be remembered for…you’ve already reached the height of your life’s achievements…the speaker of the house who took impeachment off the table for the most corrupt and unpopular administration in our country’s history, against public demand and with the authoritarian refusal to discuss it. This is your only legacy because it so far surpasses anything else you have done.

  • So, this is what Tom Davis’ constituents want him to be spending his time on? — Anne, @3

    Oh, yes; yes, please. Please, more. Tom Davis is supposed to be the saner of the two GOPers wanting John Warner’s Senate seat (the nuttier one is Gillmore). The more he makes out like an indiot, the larger the margin Mark Warner will get. Landslide, to bury them b…s in VA

  • I have an acquaintance, intelligent, republican, medical profession (not a DR.) who is witty and okay to talk to unless the talk changes to politics or people in politics. Everytime he smears a dem…he was just kidding. Each time you discuss an issue and his position gets harder to defend…he changes the subject, jumps to something from the past, blames it on Clinton or claims ‘they all do it’ then smears a democrat…but was just kidding. Nothing is ever settled and contrary opinions are quickly dismissed and forgotten. It’s always the same and it’s obnoxious. But more importantly it is always divisive. His way is always the only ‘correct’ way. You either have to just tolerate his rants, challenge him which always ends the same way as mentioned above or avoid him. But he always requires a lot of energy and really you just get sick and tired of having to deal with him.

    This made me realize that Repubs in Congress were just as tiring, closed minded, and irrational in communicating discussions on the issues. I mean after an hour of this ridiculousness coming out of Lieberman’s mouth I’d want to strangle him, and I probably could not prevent myself from slugging Graham or spitting in McCain’s face. So I don’t see how the Dems deal with these creeps on a daily basis. It’s a republican thing because when I mention this behavior to a dem they always say “yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about”. The behavior seems to be republican universal. Must be in their genes.

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  • Move On has 3.2 million members. Anyone think of that?

    So when congress condemned Move On, they condemned 3.2 million average ordinary citizens. That’s just as disgusting as (over) half of our nation not being allowed to see OUR (*u-no-what) President of OUR country (still?) speak because WE don’t belong to the ‘correct’ party.

    What is with this? There’s been at least 2 times or more that Bush systematically ‘cleaned house’ of people, who LOST jobs and lifetime careers because it was discovered they were with the ‘wrong party’. HUH? I’m not talking about 8 lawyers – I’m talking about flunkie clerks and general pions.

    The fact Congress locked Democrats out of Medicare Modernization Act until it was time to vote, then locked them in until it passed was neanderthal. Republicans locked the representation out of half of the people in the U.S.

    There is no ‘deals’ with Republicans. They have no intention of letting the powers that Bush has collected to pass into Democratic hands. Just the fear that it could, might scare the few naive Republicans left, into getting rid of Bush NOW.

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