CasdraBlog

A representative of the Rebublican Party was on This Week Ken Mehlman, the Bush-Cheney Campaign Manager, was on Meet The Press on Sunday (I can't remember who and haven't been able to figure it out via Google) and he equated the ad on MoveOn.org equating Bush with Hitler and the current anti-Kerry ads from some swift boat veterans (I won't say the name of their organization as it is NewSpeak). Is that the case?

No:

"Right. And the MoveOn.org, Bush=Hitler ads have nothing to do with Kerry's campaign either." Right. The MoveOn.org, Bush=Hitler ads barely have anything to do with MoveOn. MoveOn asked people to submit proposed advertisements to them, which people would then vote on, and one of which would be turned into a "real" ad on television. The Bush = Hitler ad was duly submitted and, because it was an inappropriate thing to say, rejected by MoveOn. The Kerry campaign had nothing to do with it, since nothing happened. Now if someone were to have called up John O'Neil one day and said, "Hey, I was in the Vietnam War, and I don't like John Kerry. Why don't you see if you can raise some money to do an ad where I'll say I treated Kerry's wounds and that based on that information I know he lied about them," and then O'Neil had said, "that's certainly interesting, how come I never heard that before" and then the guy said, "well, you never heard it before because it's not actually true, I was just suggesting that I pretend to have treated his wounds," then O'Neil said, "that doesn't sound like a very ethical thing to do, I decline to assist you in this venture" I would hardly hold George W. Bush responsible for the faux-medic's misbehavior.

I got some indepentent confermation from Fox News:

The group, which claims to have a network of about 2 million online activists, said that the ad comparing Bush to Hitler was one of the 1,512 submissions from the general public submitted as part of a campaign called Bushin30seconds.com.

MoveOn.org claims the ad was not submitted by an organization and was ultimately removed from the Web site. MoveOn.org noted that the "Hitler" comparison was not among the 15 finalists that are now viewable on the Web.

MoveOn.org released a statement on Monday, saying neither that ad nor another one portraying Hitler and Bush was their ad, "nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They will not appear on TV. We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler submissions."

MoveOn.org noted that those ads were voted down by the group's members and the public, who submitted nearly 3 million critiques while choosing the 15 finalist entries.

"We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process," the statement said. "In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system."

Update: Heh, as I was catching up on my TiVo's Daily Shows tonight, Jon Stewart show the segment I was thinking of.