Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Conservatives Don't Like the Taste of Their Own Medicine
Recently, an organization called Moveon.org ran a contest entitled "Bush in 30 Seconds". MoveOn is an organization that seeks to bring more people into politics that have been disenchanted with the process. They are *gasp* a left-leaning organization.
The contest in question asked competitors to create their own 30-second commercials that creatively expose the truth about President Bush's policies. Thousands of submissions were entered, and as with any open competition, a few wingnut commercials got through.
A couple of the commercials compared Bush to Adolf Hitler. To me that's tasteless and complete and utter bullshit. Bush is a lot of things (many of them bad), but he's not a Hitler. Asshole, maybe. Hitler, no.
The offending commercials were removed from the site, and as MoveOn's founder states, "The two offending ads can only be found one place now -- on the Republican National Committee website!"
Seems like an open-and-shut case, eh? Thin-skinned conservatives didn't think so. Particularly the head of the RNC, Ed Gillespie. He could be found on Faux News Sunday screaming about the removed ads. How dare they do this to our fearless flight-suited leader. They are evil-doers!!! Sound familar?
All that being said, here's what I want to know:
Where was Gillespie's outrage in 2002 when decorated Vietnam War veteran and Democratic Senator Max Cleland, who left three limbs on the battlefield, was featured in a Republican attack ad showing his face morphing into Osama bin Laden's?
Where was Gillespie's outrage earlier this week when the New York Post ran an editorial describing Howard Dean as resembling Hitler? The opinion piece even referred to Governor Dean as "Herr Howie"...
Why don't Gillespie's panties get in a wad every time some loudmouth yaps about "Hitlery" Clinton and "Feminazis"?
Where was ol' Easy Ed when Stephen Moore of the ultra-conservative, anti-tax Club for Growth was labeling 3 REPUBLICANS as "Franco-Republicans" because they wouldn't vote for Bush's irresponsible tax giveaway? I mean, look at this quote!!!
"President Bush courageously led the forces of freedom," the ad goes. "But some so-called allies like France stood in the way. At home, President Bush has proposed bold job-creating tax cuts to boost our economy. But some so-called Republicans like" -- the Maine ads mention Republican Senator Olympia Snowe; the Ohio ads, Senator George Voinovich -- "stand in the way."
Add to this the French flag flying in the background during the ad (I'm not making that up), and you've got a full-on commercial for Freedom Fries!
Mr. Gillespie, and indeed, the Republican power structure including the Bush Administration turn their heads to these kinds of attacks only when they are the ones delivering the blows.
Case in point: After John McCain walked away with the New Hampshire primary in 2000, Team Bush was reeling and they knew they had to win in South Carolina. What did they do to make it happen? They smeared McCain and intimated through telephone "push-polling" that McCain may have had a black love child! Classy. Bush wins in SC, you know the rest...
The Hitler ads were wrong, this much is true. But, if the RNC and the Republican party as a whole want to retain some level of consistency and avoid the kind of hypocrisy that Bill Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, and Arnold Schwarzenegger took to new heights in 2003, then they should turn the scope back on themselves occasionally.
Naturally, I won't be holding my breath....
For a terrific outlook on this topic, check out Take Back the Media's Don Waller:
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/com-waller-1-8-04.html
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