The Daily Background
| Hard-hitting VoteVets ad to run against Santorum
by Arlen Parsa
Remember the hard-hitting VoteVets ad running against Senator George “I thought little old nooses were normal office decorations” Allen in Virginia? It talked about the Republican incumbent’s failure to vote for proper body armor for troops in Iraq. I noted when I linked to it, that you could vote for the state in which a varriation of the ad would run in next, if you donated to the VoteVets fund to help get the ad on the air.
Well, the donators have voted, and the next state in which the advertisement will run in is Pennsylvania, where incumbent Senator Rick Santorum is trailing behind Democratic incumbent Bob Casey. While I dislike Santorum as much (if not more) as the next progressive, I’d be more interested in seeing the ad run in a state where the race is a bit more competative (Casey is beating Santorum handily by double digits in most polls). Or at least saving an ad like this for the week before the elections in a race like the PA Senate seat.
Either way, you can watch the varriation of the VoteVets ad (dubbed by some as the best ad so far this election cycle) which targets Santorum here.
FactCheck.org On The Ad - FALSE
http://www.factcheck.org/article438.html
False Claims About Body Armor
A new group falsely accuses Republicans of voting against body armor for troops. Both sides have misled the public about this issue.
A new ad claims Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia “voted against giving our troops” modern body armor. He did no such thing. The ad cites a vote on an appropriations amendment that had nothing whatever to do with body armor.
The ad also claims troops were sent to Iraq with flak vests “left over from the Vietnam war,” another falsehood. The ad actually shows an improved vest that wasn’t available until the 1980’s.
The newly formed group responsible for the ad, VoteVets.org, is reported to be considering similar ads attacking several other Republican incumbents, and has already announced their intention to start running them against Sen.Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.
This is a nasty tactic – accusing an opponent of playing with the lives of American troops – and both sides have stooped to it. This line of attack actually began with Republicans in 2004, when President Bush’s campaign repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent John Kerry of voting against body armor.
I have truncated your comment, because it was unreasonably long. If people want to read the full item, they can check the link you included.
If the advertisement does in fact contain falsehoods, then Senators Allen and Santorum will sue the television stations airing them (this has been done in many other cases of misleading advertisements being aired). It is incumbent on the television stations airing advertisements to ensure that they are factual, and advertisements are always pulled off the air if they are not.
We’ll see if the issue of factual accuracy does indeed come up regarding these advertisements, but if it does not, it is presumed that Senators Allen and Santorum agree that they are factually accurate, as they could easily place a call to the television stations if they are not.
Tom DeLay has used this tactic numerous times with advertisements he claimed were misleading (which ultimately turned out to be true, but the TV stations cooperated nonetheless).
In addition, I would point out that the appropriations bill did in fact allow for money to be spent on body armor, which was sorely needed. Nobody can say whether or not the money would have been used for that, had Republican-controlled Congress not killed it, but it would have allotted monies that could have been used for that express purpose. It was known that body armor shortages due to lack of funding before the bill went up for a vote, and this was publicized by the Senator who introduced the legislation, Democrat Mary Landrieu.
It is generally agreed upon that SecDef Donald Rumsfeld sought to execute the Iraq war “on the cheap” and initially asked for much less funds and much less troops than proved to be needed for the mission.