Just like the annoying "Defense of Democracies" fear-mongering ad that had played in heavy rotation on the First's television stations, the story of its sponsor and its motives keep going and going. About an hour ago, Newsweek's weekly Terror Watch column wrote up the story in Scare Tactics? Are White House allies playing election-year hardball on eavesdropping? A piece of the column:
. . .The group, run by Clifford May, a former communications director of the Republican National Committee, has not disclosed the names of its donors. May told NEWSWEEK that he launched the campaign for the express purpose of ratcheting up pressure on House Democrats. (The ads call on voters to contact specific Democratic members and demand that they vote "to keep us all safe.") "I think it's important for Democrats to hear from their constituents on this issue," May said. "This is a national security issue."
Democrats complain that the administration is trying to politicize the electronic surveillance issue and use it for partisan advantage this fall. "If you look at these ads, they are not too different from the ads they ran against Max Cleland in 2002," said Meredith Salsbery, press secretary to Minnesota Democratic Rep. Tim Walz, whose district has been targeted in the advertising campaign. (Those notorious ads impugned the patriotism and national security credentials of the Democratic senator from Georgia, a Vietnam veteran and triple amputee who wound up losing his re-election bid.) "To a lot of our constituents, these ads look like fear-mongering and scare tactics designed to persuade the public that the Democrats are soft on national security."
While we don't quite see so close a comparison with the old ad, the new one does utilize an unjustified appeal to emotion, with fear being the sole emotion played upon. We hearing that our reaction of disgust is pretty widespread.
Take GeistX's response in Rochester at CubeZoo:
. . .In politics, last night KTTC ran a commercial, and I really wish I could remember the name of the organization that paid for this, it had one of those innocent sounding names, yet the organization is pure evil type things like Americans for a Democratic Society.
UPDATE: Found it, the group is 'Defense of Democracies'. Here is the FUD ad. WARNING, this ad contains Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt as well as unhealthy amounts of Jingoism with no facts. . . .
. . .The commercial is a FUD piece saying the Senate had shown true leadership and concern for the safety of this country by voting FOR the new FISA bill (which is the bill the Bush Administration wants that include Telecom immunity), while the House ducked its responsibility and went on vacation. It showed a whole bunch of scary images and pro-American jingoism, terrorist bad bullshit common in these times thanks to the Bush Adminisration. The end put up Tim Walz's picture and contact information (which isn't on the YouTube version, and must have been added regionally for each member of Congress targeted) and urged people to call him and tell him to vote YES for security! Vote FOR the FISA bill (now with new and improved Telecom Immunity!). I won't go into why this ad is wrong on so many levels, as it makes me so enraged I get even more incoherent. But sufficed to say, the new FISA bill will not make us safer, the old FISA legislation (which had been updated) protects us and our civil liberties by requiring judicial oversight and review (even after the fact if time of the essence) and the new bill weakens civil liberties and expands the power of the Administrative Branch by weakening the checks and balances. The fact this ad could give no facts and only provide push-button emotional rhetoric should illustrate why everyone when they see something like this should, in the words of Buffalo Springfield, 'there's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear...stop children, what's the sound? Everybody look whats goin down...'
Go over to CubeZoo, watch the ad, and let GeistX know your response while the Buffalo Springfield classic plays. Then, if you're one of Walz's constituents, call his office and tell him what you think about the ad, too.
We did catch an error of fact in the Newsweek column. It noted that Democratic board member "resignations were first reported by Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent." That article--which is very fine--was posted today.
Not quite first place. On Monday, Bluestem reported a tip from the ACLU about Eliot Engle's resignation, and moments later, Matt Stoller at Open Left was first to report Charles Shumer's departure from the board and to post Donna Brazile's statement condemning the ad and removing herself from the board.
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