I’ve always said the most effective ad for Bush would simply to replay the hysterical rants of the Democrats – and that’s exactly what the Bush team has done in their latest ad. It’s a devasting and controversial ad that shows the kind of propaganda that has come out of the left from MoveOn.org to Howard Dean. It’s incredibly effective, which is why the Kerry team is already complaining about it. However, all the clips used in the ad are real. Al Gore, George Soros, Michael Moore, and MoveOn.org have all compared Bush to Hitler.
I hope the Bush team makes a national air buy with this ad… it’s devasting and effective. Bush has hanged the left with their own rope, and they’ve no one to blame but themselves.
Finally! After years of wild, wreckless rants by the left, Bush has finally started to call them on their own hysteria. Honestly, he needs to do this more often..
Ah, right. The Hitler ads. You know, the ones that were neither produced nor distributed by any Democractic group but rather were the unsolicited screeds of third parties.
If you’re going to try to hang folks with their own rope, maybe somebody should stop and check to make sure who’s rope it is you’re using. As it is this is simply one more disgusting dissemination from our administration. Don’t you think a sort of Godwin’s Law applies here? Apparently not when it suits your purposes.
Actually, MoveOn.org did solicit the ads – they were among a number of ads they solicited and hosted on their own site – until they got complaints and bad press. MoveOn.org did originally and voluntarily host this “disgusting dissemination”, and I’m quite certain that they aren’t a part of “our administration”.
As for Godwin’s law – whatever utility it may have had at one time is pretty much gone. In discussing a “loyal opposition” which compares George Bush to Hitler, and an Islamofascistic enemy which exhibits genocidal hatred of Jews, homosexuals, Americans, and other dwellers in the Dar-ul-Harb, it is no more reasonable to omit the mention of Hitler’s name than it is to omit the use of the letter “e”.
Sorry, Chet. We know who’s rope it is. Keep paying it out, please. Incorrectly referring to the ads in question as “unsolicited” gave us that much more of it. But hey, maybe I’m wrong, and it all depends on what the meaning of the word “unsolicited” is?
Actually, MoveOn.org did solicit the ads
They didn’t solicit content. In other words they didn’t say “hey, guys, lets make some ads with Hitler in ’em.” You know, like the Bush administration did.
I guess that’s what I meant. You act like the Hitler ads speak for everybody who opposes Bush, and that’s simply not true – in fact it’s a pretty disgusting slander.
And it’s simply that reason – that you conservatives believe that the opposition has nothing useful to say at all, and that everyone who disagrees with you is a raving lunatic – that you guys are going to lose in November, and lose big. The American people are fed up with the arrogance and condecension that flows from your party and your own mouths, and you’re gonna find out the hard way.
Sorry, ‘?’ after content.
Chet, I’m not “acting like the Hitler ads speak for everyone who opposes Bush” – when I wrote about ‘a loyal opposition’ which compares George to Hitler” I was writing about precisely those people. For example, I believe that all of those Democrat candidates for public office who pulled their ads from the Daily Kos site after that distasteful “mercenaries” episode – take Martin Frost, for example – would not fall into the categories of Hitler Comparators or Raving Lunatics. I’ve watched news footage of Martin Frost speaking, for example, and he seems to be a sober, decent fellow. I’ve written about some of the ones I have my doubts about here.
And while MoveOn.org did not provide content for the ads it solicited, it certainly did countenance them to one degree or another if they were screened and hosted on their site. From the Fox News story I cited earlier, we have the following:
MoveOn.org spokesman Trevor Fitzgibbon said, “we had no idea the Hitler thing even existed.”
Yet later, we have this:
MoveOn.org noted that those ads were voted down by the group’s members and the public, who submitted nearly 3 million critiques while choosing the 15 finalist entries.
So, based on MoveOn.org’s own information, they were simultaneously unaware of the existence of these ads, and voting them out of the competition. I don’t buy that. The ads were considered worthy of consideration long enough to be voted on and thereby eliminated from the competition; the criteria used in the voting were not mentioned in the article. The ads were pulled from the MoveOn.org site after Republican and Jewish groups complained about them.
There are more statements from MoveOn.org I could quote from the article, but they seem to be inconsistent, as well.
If drawing attention to some of the more distasteful and specious statements made by some of your political opponents is arrogance and condescension, call me haughty and supercillious, because I think there’s nothing wrong with doing so, and that it’s likely to be effective tactically and strategically. Again, Chet, I’m not saying that all people opposed to Bush are comparing him to Hitler, so you can put that “pretty disgusting slander” strawman out in the cornfield where it might do some good scaring the crows off, but I’ll conclude with a quote from this post by Glenn Reynolds (which linked to this post, by the way):
It’s certainly true that the ideas of the lunatic fringe have been showing up in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Personally, I think this is a mistake in terms of the campaign — and that it will seriously bite them on the ass if Kerry should get elected.
I think it’s serious already.
I guess what I don’t understand is the inconsistency – Jay has repeatedly said that “he did it too” is no justification for behavior – in fact a recent post was about that exact logical fallacy, “tu quoque” – and yet, here he is lauding Bush for doing exactly what he was so pissed off about when folks with no relation to the Kerry campaign did it.
This is the President of the United States juxtaposing his opponents with Adolph Hitler. And the fact that a few hotheads did it first is supposed to excuse for him what was called the height of poor taste for them? I just don’t get it at all. Is consistency in your supercillious moral indignation too much to ask from you people?
But he’s not juxtaposing his opponents with Hitler. He’s showing how his opponents juxtopose Hitler with himself. Especially in the new version w/ the intro, you’d have to be willfully blind to think that Bush is comparing his opponents to Hitler.
But he’s not juxtaposing his opponents with Hitler. He’s showing how his opponents juxtopose Hitler with himself.
With pictures of Hitler that none of his opponents have used?
He is juxtaposing his opponents with Hitler. Here’s the AP description of the ad:
It then cuts to an image of Hitler, followed by former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, film director Michael Moore and Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., all loudly bashing Bush. There are more clips of Hitler, Gore and then Kerry, before the screen cuts to the words, “This is not a time for pessimism and rage.”
So, that’s pretty clear to me, I guess. You’d have to be an idiot not to think that the folks that approved the ad weren’t excited about the opportunity to associate their opponents with images of Hitler, all the while knowing they could count on apologists like yourself to insist that they weren’t actually doing that.
It’s disgusting and pernicious, but unfortunately just what I’d expect from Rove and his hit squad. Just like your conservative friends in Oregon, trying to manipulate the election.
Chet: The “loyal opposition” sentance which irritates you so much was somewhat ambiguous, but I wrote it carefully, and that was part of it’s intent. The interpretation I had in mind for myself was derisive reference to those who compared George Bush to Hitler as a “loyal opposition”. This is a straightforward interpretation, given my wording. However, someone who, for whatever reason, would associate the “loyal opposition” with the whole of those who oppose Bush, would interpret it the way you did. You made that connection, not me. Interesting.
You also write this:
I think leaving the ads up long enough to be voted down was the right thing to do – it sends a much better message. A message you might pick up on if you cared to.
But as I said earlier, we have no information as to why those two advertisements were voted down. For all either of us knows, the MoveOn.org people who voted these ads down, in spite of being unaware of their existence if their own statements about the matter are to be believed, did so because they weren’t smearing Bush effectively enough, and were soft-pedaling his deficiencies. We don’t know the criteria used to judge the ads in the MoveOn.org competition, so we can’t know why the two with the Hitler themes were rejected. Given that they weren’t “filtered out” earlier in the selection process, I see no reason to assume a priori that the ads ultimately were rejected out of a sense of common decency rather than a perceived lack of tactical effectiveness.
Also, Chet, I might add that you present no link to the AP article you’re mentioning, which would allow your fellow readers here to put your quote in context. As it stands in your comment, you provide not one shred of evidence for your claim the the Bush campaign is using “…pictures of Hitler that none of his opponents has used.” While you certainly have the right to throw around terms like “pernicious” and “disgusting” in your comments, supporting them with not so much as the breath of a gnat hardly makes them convincing.
And as for Republicans trying to “manipulate the election” in Oregon by supporting Nader, it’s a perfectly legitimate campaign tactic, and will likely do far more to get Bush re-elected to the Presidency than any number of “Re-elect Gore in 2004!” bumper stickers – or MoveOn.org ads – will likely do for Kerry’s Presidential bid.
Chet – you do the homework for your own argument. In fact, I find it curious that you spent more work making empty insults at me than you did sourcing your own comment above. Again, interesting. Lets dissect your latest contribution, paragraph by paragraph of the points your attempting to refute:
(1-2)
I’ve responded at length to the points in your first paragraph. The second is an ad hominem insult – a common logical fallacy.
(3)
Again, an ad hominem insult, instead of refuting my argument. Why should I think that those two MoveOn.org Hitler-themed ads were rejected out of common decency as opposed to any other reason? After all, they weren’t considered too indecent to make it into the competition in the first place.
(4)
If it’s your comment, it’s your argument, and you do your own homework. If you don’t want to get called on lack of citations in your comments, either put them in or don’t make the comments. Think of all the effort you’re wasting on ad hominem attacks now, when you could have had a well-sourced comment from the get-go.
(5)
Again, Chet, it isn’t my homework to do. However, thanks to your link I can quote the following from the article:
A new Bush-Cheney re-election video features clips of Hitler — the same ones the campaign criticized when they were used in a Web spot that appeared on the Internet site of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org as part of a contest in January.
These are these pictures of Hitler, which some of those opposed to Bush’s election used in ads, which you described as “…pictures of Hitler that none of his opponents has used.” No wonder you didn’t link to the article until prodded to do so. I certainly see that statement above as contradicting the content of the article, unless you restrict the set of Bush’s opponents to the set of those persons immediately competing for his office. A nice piece of ambiguity on your part, so I’ll let you off on that for now.
(6),(7)
Those aren’t my comments, but I’ll address the points anyway. The ambiguity in you comment that I mentioned above cuts both ways, and as I’ve linked to in my earlier comments, Glenn Reynolds obeserved that the Hitler analogies are becoming popular beyond the lunatic fringe of those who oppose Bush’s reelection; Guido Calabresi and Al Gore have churned out much the same ideas as those expressed in those Hitler-themed MoveOn.org ads. Since I count as an opponent of Bush anyone who is opposing his reelection, I’d say points (5) and (6) stand.
(7)
Politics without cynicism and manipulation are like alcohol-free whiskey. However, your cheap-shot at conservatism aside, I see nothing morally or ethically wrong with attempting to pull the Greenies and other people whose views are even more off the beaten path than Gore’s or Calabresi’s away from Kerry and toward Nader. The principle here is get more votes than anyone else running for the Presidency through ethically and legally legitimate practices. If you’re a Bush campaign staffer, you want voters to vote for Bush. Barring that, you want them to throw their vote away on Nader, who’s a perfectly legitimate candidate for the Presidency, or perhaps Kucinich – again, a perfectly legitimate Presidential candidate. You DON’T want them voting for Kerry. If you’re a Kerry campaign staffer, you want him to win, and since the prospect of these scenarios isn’t pleasant you’d be better off trying to make Kerry a more attractive candidate than griping about Republican funding of other candidates, as long as they’re decent people.
I should also mention that Kerry hired away a somewhat controversial employee from MoveOn.org, and I’ve not read anywhere that he’s disavowing any other association with them, either. I wouldn’t expect him to, either, given where some of MoveOn.org’s funding comes from.
Wes Boyd, founder of MoveOn.org Voter Fund, reacted to the charge of MoveOn “sponsoring” two Hitler ads in the Bush in Thirty Seconds contest, and which were on the MoveOn site for two weeks of voting, thusly:
“During December, the MoveOn.org Voter Fund invited members of the public to submit ads that purported to tell the truth about the President and his policies. More than 1,500 submissions from ordinary Americans came in and were posted on a web site, bushin30seconds.org, for the public to review,” said Boyd.
“None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They will not appear on TV. We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler submissions,” Boyd added.
“They were voted down by our members and the public, who reviewed the ads and submitted nearly 3 million critiques in the process of choosing the 15 finalist entries,” Boyd said, adding that he agrees that “the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret[s] that they slipped through our screening process.”
Boyd promised “in the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system.”
Boyd’s defense was rather unfortunate for it revealed two things contradicting MoveOn’s stance: a) Boyd admits the existence of a “screening process,” a “filtering system,” however ineffective, effectively countering claims that MoveOn “did not know” what was being posted; and b) Boyd lets slip that they “were voted down” anyway, a totally unnecessary justification but one that reveals a permissive attitude to voting on something that should not have been there to begin with.
Boyd’s explanation raises more questions than it answers and leaves open the charge that MoveOn was aware of the ads but did not remove them until the RNC pointed them out.
On a related matter, MoveON is not connected to the DNC but an independent organization. Likewise, so is Democrats.com. MoveOn gets the attention and press but is Democrats no less a target for criticism? You decide.
Democrats.com reacted to the MoveOn controversey on Jan 4, 2004 with this statement:
GOP Demands Censorship of Moveon Ad Comparing Bush with Hitler
04-Jan-04
Bush Hitler Comparison
Once again, the comparison of Bush with Hitler strikes terror in the hearts of Republicans – because they know how close it cuts to the truth. A proposed TV ad submitted by a Moveon member had RNC chair Ed Gillespie spitting bullets. According to Drudge, Moveon removed the ad from its contest – one more victory for GOP censorship, bringing us ever closer to a Nazi dictatorship.
The statement remains on Democrats.com to this day. In fact it is on its “Bush Hitler Comparison” page at:
http://www.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Bush%20Hitler%20Comparison
How should we react to this? Should Democrats (whose name is being used in the url name) react harshly and publicly to it? Or should Democrats wait around until the RNC uses it as “just another example” in an ad similar to the current Bush ad? You decide.
I certainly see that statement above as contradicting the content of the article, unless you restrict the set of Bush’s opponents to the set of those persons immediately competing for his office. A nice piece of ambiguity on your part
There is no ambiguity to my statements. I’ve made it very clear who I’m talking about – I’m talking about the people portrayed in Bush’s ad.
Have any of those people, to your knowledge, made anti-Bush ads making comparisons to Hitler? As far as I know, the two guys who made the MoveOn Hitler ads don’t appear in the Bush ad.
Therefore this attempt by the administration to portray these people as “Hitler-callers” or whatever is patently false. As I said, none of the people in Bush’s ad have compared him to Hitler, so for him to imply that they have is an outright lie.
Glenn Reynolds obeserved that the Hitler analogies are becoming popular beyond the lunatic fringe of those who oppose Bush’s reelection;
They’re getting pretty popular on Bush’s side, too. This is hardly the first. I can dig up examples if you want.
However, your cheap-shot at conservatism aside, I see nothing morally or ethically wrong with attempting to pull the Greenies and other people whose views are even more off the beaten path than Gore’s or Calabresi’s away from Kerry and toward Nader.
Oh, really? Why don’t you explain to me how it improves Bush’s strengths as a leader to have Nader in the race. Explain to me how having Nader in the race improves Bush’s record in office.
Explain to me why this is even necessary if Bush is the right guy for the job. I can’t believe you don’t have a problem with this – it’s like conservatives in Oregon are saying “Bush isn’t good enough to elect on his own merits; we’re going to have cheat in order to get him relected again.”
It’s entirely consistent, of course, with Bush campaigns in the past – get elected by any means necessary, except for the only legitimate means; convincing the people he’s qualified for the job.
Those aren’t my comments, but I’ll address the points anyway.
You’re correct; my apologies. The writing style and content were so similar that I didn’t notice the different byline.
I’m eager to hear Reding defend his inconsistency here. For months, he’s been pissing and moaning about obscure MoveOn.org ads juxtaposing Bush with Hitler, but now praises the “home team” when the employ the same childish tactics. Yet when he’s called to clarify the inconsistency, where is he? He certainly must be intelligent enough to recognize he’s now celebrating the same tactics he’s been whining like a child about for the last four or five months for “sinking political discourse to the gutter.” I’m starting to wonder if Jay isn’t a liberal parodying a radical conservative blogger. Could he seriously not realize his double standard was gonna come back to haunt him? Nobody could be THAT stupid.
I’m wondering if Mark is a conservative trying to make liberals look like ranting idiots. Perhaps “Mark” is secretly Karl Rove?
The Bush ad merely points out what leftists like MoveOn.org, Al Gore, and Michael Moore have said. Those words speak for themselves, as they’re right from the horses mouth.
Certainly, you Mark, who complained bitterly about the ad that supposedly “compared Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden” would be the first to reject ads that directly compared Bush to Hitler, Al Gore’s calling Republicans “digital brownshirts”, George Soros’ irresponsible comparisons to Hitler, Michael Moore’s extremism, etc.
I won’t be holding my breath for that, however…
With pictures of Hitler that none of his opponents have used?
Hmmm … none of his opponents? I take it therefore that the Bush-morphing-into-Hitler ads appeared by spontaneous generation, as eels were once supposed to grow from horse hairs?
I’m eager to hear Reding defend his inconsistency here. For months, he’s been pissing and moaning about obscure MoveOn.org ads juxtaposing Bush with Hitler, but now praises the “home team” when the employ the same childish tactics.
No, Mark, it’s a minor subtlety, I admit, but approving of the Bush ad teams agreeing that the Move On ads were over the line is not the same thing.
What I find most frightening about this argument is that you might actually imagine it’s a good one.
The Bush ad merely points out what leftists like MoveOn.org, Al Gore, and Michael Moore have said.
And paints those words as being those of Kerry, Edwards, and Dean, which they are not.
I take it therefore that the Bush-morphing-into-Hitler ads appeared by spontaneous generation
Are any of those ad-makers Kerry, Edwards, or Dean? No? Then don’t you think it’s a little disingenuous of Bush to pretend that they were?
No, of course you don’t. It doesn’t matter what Bush et al. do so long as they win.
Kerry hired Zach Exley – one of the people responsible for MoveOn.org. Al Gore is a former Democratic Presidential candidate. Dick Gephardt was as well. Kerry himself is quoted in the ad. Terry McAuliffe endorsed Michael Moore’s radicalism. This is not the “fringe” of the Democratic Party – this is the Democratic Party.
But of course, it’s those evil, mean, nasty Republicans that are really to blame.
Pathetic, simply pathetic. When confronted with your own filth, it’s the same old game, blame the GOP.
One wonders when the Democratic Party will simply grow up.
“Confronted by your own filth” from the very people who’ve condemned “us” and declared themselves above “us” ever since some bored conservative spotted the obscure MoveOn.org ad six months ago. Even if “the other guy” launched the first fistful of mud, both sides are climbing out of the pigpen just as dirty….only your side is also stained with your own clueless hypocrisy. You are simply make a bigger fool out of yourself for defending this after your months of casting shame on your opponents for doing the same thing.
Who would have thought that the lightweight wing of the Democratic Party who consistently compare Republicans with Hitler have actually made the Republican Party jealous over dominating the tactic? Who would have thought that when the Republicans were so busy lambasting the few Dems who compared them to Hitler that they actually wanted a piece of that same action? Congratulations, Jay. Your boys have officially become copycats of the lamest Democratic Party campaign tactic. Right when I thought the Republican Party couldn’t possibly sink any lower, they always manage to slither a few more inches beneath that limbo bar.
What a Shakespearean comment – the sense of a being “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing” – two paragraphs of vitriol lacking in any point.
It wasn’t just a few Democrats saying these things – it’s Al Gore. It’s Michael Moore. It’s Terry McAuliffe. It’s Richard Gephardt.
Unless you want to seriously argue that these people aren’t representative of the Democratic Party – and given that Terry McAuliffe is the chairman of the DNC the whole argument that the big bad Republicans are smearing the nice and reasonable Democrats is so asinine that only someone who not only drank the DNC Kool-Aid, but went back for more could possibly make it.
Al Gore said those things. MoveOn.org featured those ads on their website. Terry McAuliffe endorsed Michael Moore’s latest piece of trash. Unless you want to conveniently throw those facts down the memory hole, you have to face up to the fact that the Democrats are attempting to use politics of mass destruction in a shameless and vicious attack against the President.
President Bush and his team consistently think outside the box. They are, without a doubt, consistently coming up with ideas and solutions outside of conventional thinking. I guess the funny thing is the way President Bush routinely outthinks his opponents. he is a shrewd man.
Turning over sovereignty two days early.
This ad throwing the democrats words back into their faces.
Thanksgiving visit to Iraq
Liberation of Iraq
UN performances
Libya gives up WMD
Taxcuts for all taxpayers
Minority representation
Afghanastan
Now you’re reduced to comparing Terry McAuliffe endorsing Michael Moore’s movie to politicians comparing their opponents to Hitler? I long for the days when Republicans were at least clever with their semantic games (“death tax”). Now you are reduced to comparing apples with oranges in a matter that doesn’t even remotely parallel reality.
For the third time, I have taken Al Gore and MoveOn.org to the woodshed for silly comparisons of Bush to Hitler. Since you’ve accused Terry McAuliffe, Michael Moore and Dick Gephardt of doing the same, the burden of proof is on you to cite examples, and endorsing “Fahrenheit 9-11” isn’t gonna cut it.
And for all your past and present indignation of Dems comparing Bush or other Republicans to Hitler, you have failed to sufficiently or even haphazardly address why you’re applauding the latest RNC ad doing the same thing. The ad should be lambasted at two levels….for resorting to lame schoolyard political discourse….and for having to rip off the idea of others who’ve resorted to lame schoolyard political discourse in the past.
Mark: THE AD DOES NOT COMPARE ANYONE TO HITLER. It merely replays the MoveOn ads which did.
If you can’t get the most basic facts right, why bother?
This is not the “fringe” of the Democratic Party – this is the Democratic Party.
One of Niven’s Laws is “there is no cause so noble you can’t find a few fools following it.” The problem with Republicans is that they put those guys in charge.
THE AD DOES NOT COMPARE ANYONE TO HITLER.
Don’t be naieve, Jay. Do you think the fact that the ad juxtaposes Democrats with images of Hitler is coincidence? You don’t think that the idea that might associate those images in a voters mind might have occured to the folks that made the ad? You don’t think they relished the chance to compare their opponents to Hitler in such a way that they could plausibly deny that they did?
(If I may) I really think the ad’s intent is to say: “see, these guys are those ready to compare us with Hitler”. I don’t think the GOP is comparing Dems to Hitler. The main reason is that there’s no ground for that. Bu$h on the other hand…
“Democrats are attempting to use politics of mass destruction in a shameless and vicious attack against the President.”
Maybe we should search their houses with missiles (it’s not very efficient to find anything but at least it would kill them ;-), or hold them in Guantanamo without sleep, food, lawyer, etc. No one should ever dare to compare the President with anyone.
I think I’ll address your comment Vincent – and likely only once.
You’re hyperbole in the last paragraph of your comment is apparently hinting that our treatment of combatants who’ve been nabbed fighting without uniforms or a military-type command and control structure, to whom the protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply, is sufficient grounds for equating the behavior of the GOP to the behavior of Hitler in particular, and by extrapolation the Nazis overall.
Not only is your argument premised on a non sequitur, but your perception of the world and mine are so disjoint that we might as well be living in parallel universes, leaving us with no real consensus of reality to base a proper debate on, so I’ll leave it there.
Chet: Let me answer your comment of 27 June, 12:56 PM, paragraph by paragraph as I did earlier. I think I’ll leave it at that afterward. I’ll reference your paragraphs as I did earlier.
(1-3)
You’re setting up a strawman, here. The fact that Kerry, Dean, etc. didn’t actually produce the ads themselves isn’t the point. The point is that they’ve allied themselves with MoveOn.org, the organization which found those ads fit to enter their ad competition. As I linked to earlier, Kerry’s wife funds MoveOn.org via the Tides Foundation. MoveOn.org is a soft-money organization which can’t support candidates directly, but which funds “issue advertising”. There’s nothing wrong with Kerry’s wife funding MoveOn.org, or with Democrats benefiting from MoveOn.org’s “issue advocacy” ads (which I see everywhere on the DC Metro system). But you’re known by the company you keep, whether or not you’re a politico. Neither Kerry nor Dean, for example, has disavowed their association with MoveOn.org, nor has Terry MacAuliffe disavowed MoveOn.org’s association with the Democratic Party. One’s associations have both benefits and costs; the Democrats are, in this instance, are now paying some of the costs.
(4)
I realize that my side of the political debate has some come up with some pretty unpleasant epithets for our opposition; the word “Hitlery” comes to mind. It’s a puerile insult which adds nothing to the debate – but it’s a puerile insult. We’re all free to think what we like, but sober people don’t go off equating candidates for political office in the US with Nazis for the purpose of creating advertisments, or countenancing those who do. Those who do so risk public opprobrium.
(5-6)
You’re creating another strawman here. Whatever I think of Bush’s strengths as a leader are, there are people like you and Vincent who think otherwise, and have the right to vbote him out of office. I and others like me want Bush to stay in office, and helping the Nader campaign in Oregon (at least), which is a perfectly fair campaign tactic, should improve Bush’s chances for reelection.
(7)
If you’re discussing Bush’s career as Governor of Texas, please provide some examples (and please don’t harangue me about how I should go sourcing your arguments again. I normally don’t ask for sources for generally recognized facts (the density of water at 10 degrees centigrade, why Nixon was impeached, etc.), but for specific bits of information not generally accepted as true, or whose veracity is questionable, I generally ask. If you’re discussing the 2000 Presidential election, don’t bother citing anything; it’s been analyzed to death, and it didn’t leave your side in its will.
(7)
No apology needed; “no harm, no foul” as the saying goes.
The fact that Kerry, Dean, etc. didn’t actually produce the ads themselves isn’t the point.
In fact, that’s exactly the point being made by the Bush ad.
The point is that they’ve allied themselves with MoveOn.org, the organization which found those ads fit to enter their ad competition.
Can you show me evidence that MoveOn.org actually reviewed ads before posting them to be rated? You’re acting like these ads recieved some kind of MoveOn approval; so far you’ve offered nothing to substantiate that allegation. Keep in mind that you’re going to have to convince me that MoveOn reviewed each one of 1,500 submissions before putting them on the website to be voted on.
I and others like me want Bush to stay in office, and helping the Nader campaign in Oregon (at least), which is a perfectly fair campaign tactic, should improve Bush’s chances for reelection.
It’s hardly a reccommendation for Bush as a leader if the best you can do is fraudulently support a third-party candidate to bait the opposition. Even if it’s a legal tactic it’s one I’d be embarrassed to be associated with. It stuns me that you see no problem with it.
but for specific bits of information not generally accepted as true, or whose veracity is questionable, I generally ask.
No, that’s fine. I realize you may not be familiar with the dirty campaign tactics of your candidate.
Generally though it’s a little annoying to be accused of not citing one’s source when one has already provided enough info for the reasonably intelligent person to find the source (i.e. “yesterday’s Associated Press article” or “Dr. Baum’s latest article in JAMA.”)
At any rate, I’m happy to substantiate a claim that Bush’s campaign staff uses some pretty dirty tactics:
In early December 1999, George W. Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, and Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater squared off in the Manchester, New Hampshire, airport. Rove was angry over a story Slater had written suggesting that it was plausible that Rove was behind the whispering campaign that warned that Senator John McCain–then soaring in the GOP presidential primary polls–might any day unravel because he had been under so much pressure when he was tortured as a POW in Vietnam.
In a 700-word article that Slater said wasn’t the most significant thing he’d written about Rove, he referred to questionable campaign tactics attributed to Rove: teaching College Republicans dirty tricks; spreading a rumor that former Texas Governor Ann Richards was too tolerant of gays and lesbians; circulating a mock newspaper that featured a story about a former Democratic governor’s drinking and driving when he was a college student; spreading stories about Texas official Jim Hightower’s alleged role in a contribution kickback scheme; and alerting the press to the fact that Lena Guerrero, a rising star in the Texas Democratic Party, had lied about graduating from college. Rove was explicitly linked by testimony and press reports to all but the gay and lesbian story; the college incident had been so widely reported for fifteen years that it was essentially part of the common domain. Slater also reported that primary candidates Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer blamed the Bush camp for the smear campaign.
Suggesting a war veteran might not be suitable for office because of his war experiences? That’s a pretty fuckin’ low smear.
At any rate, Rove’s dirty campaigning is pretty much common knowledge. I wish I had known before I voted for Bush the first time.
I don’t see how any person who claims to be a person of principle can support Bush.
Chet, I’ll birefly address some of your points here, as before.
(1)
I don’t get what you mean by that.
(2)
Read the Fox News article I linked to earlier. An excerpt:
MoveOn.org noted that those ads were voted down by the group’s members and the public, who submitted nearly 3 million critiques while choosing the 15 finalist entries.
“We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process,” the statement said. “In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system.”
We can’t know if the ads were screened. We do know that they had a screening process. We know that the ads were known to MoveOn.org’s membership, because they voted on them. If any of these people complained of the ads’ content, which I doubt, it wasn’t acted on by MoveOn.org.
(3)
Your strawman argument about recommending Bush as a leader isn’t any less fallacious upon repetition. There’s nothing fraudulent about The Republicans supporting Nader, anymore than Nader’s candidacy is fraudlent. Feel free to be embarrassed and stunned by it.
(4-6)
It isn’t my job to look up the sources for your arguments. A law student buddy of mine told me that if a lawyer pulled that tactic on a judge in a courtroom proceeding he’d probably be charged with contempt of court by that judge. This isn’t a court of law, but it illustrates how insisting that your opponent look up the sources for your argument is generally considered bad form. That this annoys you doesn’t particularly concern me.
(6)
The story relates a lot of “allegations” and “plausible” attributions of Rove dirty tricks, like claim regarding McCain, but not a lot of proof on the really rough stuff.
The rest is pretty much the standard, unremarkable run of political dirty tricks, especially the bit about the Governor’s DWI charge being revealed; that one got pulled on George Bush in 2000.
(7)
I already addressed that. I don’t think your profanity is helping your argument here, but using it is your prerogative.
(8)
That you or anyone else would really be shocked to find out that political campaigning is frequently be a dirty business is itself something of a shock to me.
(9)
So I gathered. That, too, is your prerogative.