But footage came from MoveOn.org piece blasting president
By Art Moore © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
You know you’ll like it... like dropping blood in waters infested by sharks
Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign is calling on President Bush to apologize for using images of Adolf Hitler in an Internet ad on the Bush-Cheney 2004 website. The images, however, originally came from a TV ad posted online by a Democrat party ally, MoveOn.org, which likened President Bush to the Nazi dictator, points out Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. Schmidt told WorldNetDaily he considers the call for an apology the "single most deceitful and deceptive release put out by the Kerry campaign."
| That's saying a mouthful... |
As WND reported, MoveOn.org, a left-leaning "Section 527" soft-money organization, posted two Bush-Hitler spots on its site as part of its "Bush in 30 Seconds" television ad contest. One of the ads featured images of the German tyrant with the words, "What were war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in 2003." The final two frames include Hitler with his hand raised and then a shot of Bush with his hand up taking the oath of office. Nevertheless, the Kerry campaign called on Bush to apologize for folding brief excerpts from the MoveOn.org pieces into an ad of its own that begins with the title: "The Many Faces of the John Kerry Campaign. The Coalition of the Wild-eyed." The Bush ad then presents footage of former Vice President Al Gore raging against the president in a speech, followed by the first of two sections of footage from the MoveOn.org ads. Also included are clips of angry Bush opponents Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., filmmaker Michael Moore and Kerry himself. The spot concludes with: "This is not a time for pessimism and rage... It’s a time for optimism, steady leadership and progress."
| That's prob'ly what's causing them to foam at the mouth... |
Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement issued yesterday, "The fact that George Bush thinks its appropriate to use images of Adolf Hitler in his campaign raises serious questions about his fitness to spend another four years in the White House."
| Does it raise any questions about MoveOn.org? |
"Adolf Hitler slaughtered millions of innocent people and has no place in a campaign that is supposed to be about the future and hope of this nation," Singer said.
| Publicans would heartily agree. |
"The President’s use of these images during a month that evoked the memory of World War II is remarkably insensitive to the sacrifices of the millions of people who lost their lives during Hitlers reign of terror."
| Yasss... Life is good here on Arcturus XLI... |
Singer said the Bush campaign, "should immediately remove these hateful images from its website and apologize for using them. The use of Adolf Hitler by any campaign, politician or party is simply wrong." Asked by WorldNetDaily to explain why using images from an ad that originated with a Democrat ally is inappropriate, Singer argued MoveOn.org is not affiliated with the Kerry campaign.
He added that the group – founded by a California millionaire in 1998 to defend President Clinton from impeachment – has repudiated the two ads, as well, making it "unfair to associate those images" with Kerry.
The Bush campaign’s Schmidt disagrees. "All of the images used in the [Bush campaign] video contain attacks on the president that have been aired by John Kerry and his campaign surrogates, including two that MoveOn.org ran," he told WND. "They are disparaging, and we made the determination that voters should see the disgusting attacks that are made every day." He asserted the Hitler references are "part and parcel of the coalition that has formed to elect John Kerry," noting that Gore made the same attacks in a speech Thursday, comparing Bush to Stalin as well as Hitler. "The effort is filled with hate speech and unsubstantiated attacks that are never repudiated by the Kerry campaign."
He insisted the Kerry campaign is closely tied to MoveOn.org, to the point where the non-profit group announced Kerry’s economic policy before he did. Zack Exley, who served as director of special projects for MoveOn’s political action committee, became the Kerry campaign’s director of online communications and organization this spring, Schmidt points out. The sudden move came at a time when the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, charging MoveOn.org and other Democratic allies violated campaign-finance law by running $17 million worth of attack ads against Bush. Schmidt also says MoveOn.org’s biggest contributor, billionaire financier George Soros, has compared Bush to Hitler. In an interview with the Washington Post, Soros said he believed the White House was guided by a "supremacist ideology."
"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," he said. "... When I hear Bush say, ’You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans. ... My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me." In January, Soros told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace no less than the future of the planet hinges on the results of the presidential election. WND reported Soros seeks to raise up to $75 million and has pledged more than $15 million of his own money to prevent Bush from staying in the White House. Although MoveOn.org issued an apology for the Bush-Hitler ads, one week later it staged an event to announce contest winners in which participants stayed on the Nazi theme. Comedian Margaret Cho said, in part: "Despite all of this stupid bull---- that the Republican National Committee, or whatever the f--- they call them, that they were saying that they’re all angry about how two of these ads were comparing Bush to Hitler? I mean, out of thousands of submissions, they find two. They’re like f---ing looking for Hitler in a haystack. You know? I mean, George Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he f---ing applied himself. (big, extended applause) I mean he just isn’t." |