still more on the MoveOn ads
Channel 13 does some excellent fact-checking of the MoveOn.org advertisement “Dumping Billions”. Bottom line: the ad is a little misleading. In particular, it suggests that Kuhl voted to give $18 billion to Halliburton when in fact
Halliburton’s last contract was awarded in 2004, when Kuhl hadn’t yet been sworn into Congress.
The other advertisement, titled “Caught Red-Handed” is much better, in my opinion, and does not seem to be misleading or inaccurate.
Kuhl has asked stations not to run the “Dumping Billions” commercials on the grounds that they are inaccurate. I don’t think any of the ads are misleading enough that they should be yanked, though it’s easy to see where the Kuhl people are coming from.
This, from John Sweeney (NY-20), who was in Congress for the vote giving the money to Halliburton, is just silly, though
U.S. Rep. John Sweeney has gotten one of the region’s best known lawyers to ask TV stations to pull a brutal MoveOn.Org ad against the congressman.
The letter comes after Sweeney’s campaign spokeswoman, Maureen O’Brien Donovan, was apparently unsuccessful in trying to persuade the stations to stop airing the “red handed†ad.
…
Both ads, however, use the “caught red-handed’’ theme, which, [Stewart] Jones wrote, falsely implies Sweeney has done something illegal.
Related posts:
The article in the Albany paper that broke the Sweeney story also reported that MoveOn hadn’t asked the stations there to run “dumping billions”, just “caught red-handed”. I agree that the latter ad is more accurate than the former, though they’re both examples of why most people hate watching TV before an election. The black-and-white grainy photo, overwrought narration, and heavy-handed imagery is almost self-parody.
I think the ads are achieving their desired effect. The Republicans are very rattled by them — we started getting strange right-wing trolls here when we first posted about the ads, for example. And Sweeney’s efforts to get the ads yanked are ridiculous (Kuhl’s are less ridiculous). They are over-the-top, though, that’s for sure.
Self-parody…you mean like this?
[...] Given how much the Kuhl campaign whined about the supposed inacccuracies in the MoveOn commercials (some of which were real, but no more real, it seems than this inaccuracy), I have no sympathy for him here. You live by the technicality, you die by the technicality. That’s life in the big city. [...]