Hypocrisy on political advertising
When MoveOn.org posted not one, but two ads on its Web site that likened George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, John Kerry uttered nary a discouraging word.
When the Media Fund ran attack ads that falsely claimed: “President Bush says he’s going to help companies outsource jobs” to other countries, the Massachusetts senator was mum.
Yet when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth opened up a can of you-know-what on Kerry, running ads raising questions about his four-month tour of duty in Vietnam, the Democratic presidential nominee got his drawers in a bunch.
He sicked his lawyers on TV station managers, not-so-gently suggesting that they ought not run the Swiftie ads. He beseeched the Federal Elections Commission to muzzle his estranged band of brothers.
And finally, desperately, he accused President Bush of being behind the Swift Boat ads. “The longer he goes without specifically condemning this terrible smear,” Kerry’s campaign spokesman said this week, “the clearer it is what’s going on here.”
Well, what’s clearly going on here is hypocrisy.
John Kerry hasn’t said a thing about the $60 million worth of ads hating on Bush, purchased on the Democrat’s behalf by groups like MoveOn.org and the Media Fund.
Yet, Kerry is screaming bloody murder — maybe he’ll “earn” himself another Purple Heart — about the Swiftie ad buys, which haven’t even amounted to one-twentieth of what the pro-Kerry, anti-Bush groups have spent.
The Kerry campaign has made a big deal about two members of the Bush campaign having ties to the Swift Boat vets. Well, both men, Ben Ginsberg, the Bush re-election team’s outside counsel, and retired Air Force Colonel Ken Cordier, a campaign volunteer, resigned.
But there have been no similar resignations from the Democratic Party apparatchiks, including past and present members of the Kerry campaign, who have ties to MoveOn.org, the Media Fund and other groups.
Bob Bauer, a Washington lawyer, is legal counsel both to the Kerry campaign and America Coming Together. MoveOn.org’s Zack Exley joined the Kerry campaign as its director of online communications and organizing.
And the Kerry campaign also hired Bill Knapp, who was the Media Fund’s ad consultant.
Under the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold, there was not supposed to be coordination between “independent” groups and political candidates.
But clearly the Kerry campaign has been coordinating its election-related activities with the Bush-hating organizations. If it is not a downright violation of the law, which Kerry enthusiastically supported, it clearly is contrary to the spirit of the law.
That’s why Bush issued Kerry a challenge this week. “I hope my opponents join me in … condemning these activities of 527s. I think they are bad for the system.”
But that was not good enough for Kerry. He wanted the president to specifically repudiate the Swifties’ ad, to urge the vets to pull their TV spots.
It is a wonder that Kerry can keep a straight face when he dares to accuse Bush of “hiding behind front groups.” If the Swift Boat brouhaha has revealed anything, it is that the Democratic presidential nominee is an unabashed hypocrite.
Joseph Perkins is a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and can be reached at Joseph.Perkins@UnionTrib.com.