{"id":879,"date":"2003-11-24T13:13:43","date_gmt":"2003-11-24T18:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/879.html"},"modified":"2003-11-24T13:13:43","modified_gmt":"2003-11-24T18:13:43","slug":"the-new-gop-ad-is-pretty-outrageous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-new-gop-ad-is-pretty-outrageous\/","title":{"rendered":"The new GOP ad is pretty outrageous"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been a mini-firestorm of controversy surrounding the new Republican National Committee TV ad<\/a> on Bush’s war on terrorism. I wanted to withhold comment until I saw the ad for myself. Now that I have seen it, I can tell you that it’s pathetic.<\/p>\n

The ad started running in Iowa yesterday, at a cost of about $100,000<\/a>, but it’s receiving tons of “free media” as reporters and political players hash out its duplicity.<\/p>\n

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the ad starts off showing Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address — the same speech littered with false claims about the nature of the Iraqi threat — telling the nation, “It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.” The GOP ad then shows the viewer on-screen text that reads, “Some are attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.”<\/p>\n

It then goes back to Bush’s SOTU, with the president saying, “Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power.” On screen, the viewer then sees text saying, “Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others.”<\/p>\n

Naturally, I expect the GOP and Bush’s campaign to broadcast ads touting the president’s supposed strength on fighting terrorism. I don’t think the claims will be accurate, but I expect them to be made. This advertisement, however, is not only wrong in the substance of every claim, it makes insulting and erroneous claims about Bush’s critics.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most outrageous is the claim that “some are attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.” The language is unambiguous. Bush’s critics, the GOP claims, disapprove of the president because of his anti-terrorism efforts. The underlying message: Bush and the GOP are patriots who will keep us safe; Dems, meanwhile, are unpatriotic and would place our safety in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

This is beyond the pale.
\n
\nWho, exactly, has attacked Bush “for attacking the terrorists”? The Democratic Party, its lawmakers, and its presidential candidates overwhelmingly supported the war in Afghanistan, which sponsored those who executed the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as Wesley Clark said<\/a> yesterday on CBS’ Face the Nation, “I’m not attacking the president because he’s attacking terrorists; I’m attacking him because he’s not<\/i> attacking terrorists. He deliberately took us into Iraq, which is not where the terrorists were. He pulled off in Afghanistan. He said, ‘Osama bin Laden, dead or alive’; he went after Saddam Hussein instead. He hasn’t put the effort into homeland security; it’s been an after thought of this administration. So I think the ads are blatantly political, they’re wrong, they’re misleading, and I hope the American people will see through it. I call on [Bush] to take those ads off.”<\/p>\n

The GOP also claims that Bush’s critics would have us “[put] our national security in the hands of others.” Again, who are they talking about? The GOP claims that “some call for us to retreat” from the war on terror. Really? Who?<\/p>\n

Billmon’s right<\/a>; the ad is an “Orwellian masterpiece.”<\/p>\n

That said, the fact that the ad was made at all is noteworthy. In fact, it’s indicative of the fact that the GOP and the White House are getting a little nervous about the campaign.<\/p>\n

In 1995, when Clinton started airing ads over a year before Election Day, the Republicans said it was a sign that the Dems were worried about losing. Well, what do you know, look who’s on-the-air so far in advance of the 2004 election.<\/p>\n

In fact, when Clinton started running ads, they were positive, bio-driven spots. In contrast, the GOP is airing negative ads, condemning unidentified detractors for criticisms that haven’t even been offered outside of the White House’s fertile imagination.<\/p>\n

It seems clear that Dems’ criticism is beginning to have an effect as Americans continue to lose confidence in Bush’s handling of foreign affairs. Indeed, with al Queda launching a new round of terrorist attacks, progress in Iraq hard to find, and Afghanistan continuing to get worse, the “terrorism issue” is increasingly looking like a loser for Bush.<\/p>\n

As a White House advisor told the Washington Post over the weekend, “The president is more vulnerable on the issue of the war, and that is a source of concern. We’re under assault, and we need to do something.”<\/p>\n

The GOP would have us believe the Dems’ criticism of Bush is going unnoticed, but the ad betrays the party’s true fears. They’re getting scared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s been a mini-firestorm of controversy surrounding the new Republican National Committee TV ad on Bush’s war on terrorism. I wanted to withhold comment until I saw the ad for myself. Now that I have seen it, I can tell you that it’s pathetic. The ad started running in Iowa yesterday, at a cost of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}