The Daily Background

A few days ago, FactCheck.org came out with a report that said that the hard-hitting VoteVets ad which is running against Republican Senators George Allen and Rick Santorum, was misleading. I commented on the FactCheck claim at the time, saying the following:

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.

MediaMatters now has a report on the FactCheck.org claims, and has found that they were wrong in their assessment of the VoteVets ad, which is not misleading after all. MediaMatters concluded that the ad, which has been called the best of the election cycle so far, is truthful:

In recent days, both The Arizona Republic editorial page and the website FactCheck.org have attacked as “deceitful” and “just plain wrong” a television advertisement by the newly formed group Vote Vets criticizing Sen. George F. Allen (R-VA) for his April 2003 opposition to a Democratic amendment that would have increased U.S. National Guard funding for body armor. While the Republic and FactCheck have conceded that Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), the amendment’s sponsor, made clear in a press release that the $1 billion measure included funding for helmets and bulletproof vests, both outlets have nonetheless argued that, because Landrieu did not specify “body armor” as a “priority” when discussing the legislation on the Senate floor, the assertion that Allen voted against body armor is “false” and “scandalous.”



But regardless of whether Landrieu specifically cited “body armor,” she repeatedly stated on the floor that the bill would ensure that National Guard soldiers had “helmets” and other “force protection” equipment intended to “minimize causalities.” More important, in their defense of Allen, the Republic falsely suggested — and FactCheck falsely asserted — that Allen and his Republican colleagues have never voted against supplemental funding for body armor. In fact, six months later, they opposed an amendment offered by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), which would have provided additional funding explicitly for body armor.

This is not the only Democratic advertisement which has been attacked this fall, with a recent television spot being pulled off the air in Montana, after it quoted Republican Senator Conrad Burns using bad language to demean firefighters.

Filed under: oh six midterm Elections, Z-TDB Blog