There’s been plenty of controversy surrounding the new wave of Bush campaign ads, most of which has centered around the appropriateness of using the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in political advertising.
An interesting side fight has been ongoing over one of the ads, titled “Tested,” which features two people who appear to be firefighters. The visual outraged the Association of Fire Fighters, which described the ads as “absolutely disgraceful and disgusting.”
While the union’s frustration stemmed from Bush using images that made him appear to be a friend of firefighters, despite having cut their funding, there’s a new wrinkle: the ad doesn’t even feature real firefighters.
As Atrios noted over the weekend, Newsweek discovered that the Bush campaign used actors instead of the real thing.
Another less-publicized aspect of the ad flap: the use of paid actors — including two playing firefighters with fire hats and uniforms in what looks like a fire station. “Where the hell did they get those guys?” cracked Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed John Kerry, when he first saw the ads. (A union spokesman said the shots prompted jokes that the fire hats looked like the plastic hats “from a birthday party.”) “There’s many reasons not to use real firemen,” retorted one Bush media adviser. “Mainly, its cheaper and quicker.”
I’m not necessarily prepared to condemn the use of actors in campaign commercials; it’s extremely common. But would it have killed Bush’s ad team to find real firefighters to appear in the ad? The flap leaves them open to obvious mockery and suggests they couldn’t find real firefighters who’d be willing to appear on Bush’s behalf.
It’s almost hard to believe how badly the Bush campaign has stumbled out of the blocks.