We really shouldn't be surprised, but the SCLM has been awful in their coverage of the Busheviks latest campaign ad controversy. Specifically, they once again are repeating the RNC lie that the Hitler ad was a "MoveOn ad." No one is mentioning that this ad was
not produced by MoveOn and was quickly removed from their website.
Typical, and particularly egregious, is
Adam Nagourney's piece today in the NY Times. Not only does he attribute it to MoveOn, but claims that
they have been airing the ad. Here it is (emphasis mine):
There is even a shot of Adolf Hitler, lifted from an advertisement that Moveon.Org has been airing that attacks Mr. Bush's Iraq policies.
But he has plenty of company, although most are not quite as directly wrong as Adam N. Reuters says (emphasis mine):
A clip from an anti-Bush ad from the liberal organization MoveOn.org blends images of Adolf Hitler and Bush.
Well, at least they don't say that MoveOn ran the ad, but no mention, of course, of the fact that the ad was taken down and disavowed.
And even AFP, which at least mentions that the ad was taken down, doesn't correct the Bush campaign lie (again, emphasis mine):
But Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt denied any intention to draw a direct line between Kerry and the head of the Third Reich and said the German's image
came from attack ads run on the Democrat's behalf by the group MoveOn.org.
MoveOn.org quickly withdrew a spot linking Bush and Hitler, and the Kerry campaign said it had nothing to do with it.
Okay, fair enough, at least the line "attack ads run on the Democrat's behalf by the group MoveOn.org" is attributed to the Bush campaign spokesliar, but the article never refutes the fact that these ads were "run."
No articles up yet from AP, Knight-Ridder, or other newspapers that I've found so far ... I'll update the diary if and when I find them.
UPDATE 5:55pm PST 6/25/04
The MoveOn and Hitler references have quickly been removed from the Nagourney story. So now at least the falsehood is gone, but the story now oddly makes reference to the new Bush ad without any reference to the most controversial component: the images of Hitler.
UPDATE 6:30pm PST 6/25/04
I wasn't able to screen shot a cache of the original version og the Nagourney story before it was gone, but I was able to grab the Google News search that shows the line in question:
UPDATE 8:30pm PST 6/25/04
Just makes you shake your head. Newsweek's article on this actually tells the story as it happened, with a quote from Eli Pariser:
MoveOn.org, a left-wing political fundraising group, immediately objected. “We never sponsored those [Hitler] ads, we didn’t condone them,” says Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn PAC. He says theHitler clips originally appeared on the group’s Web site in January as part of the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest as part of two of the 1,100 entries the organization received After learning that the offensive Hitler spots were on the site—and facing criticism for them—MoveOn.org removed the entries. The Hitler submissions were up for 10 days “during which they were seen by a couple hundred people, including apparently, a [Republican National Committee] researcher, who posted them on the RNC site,” says Pariser. The new Bush ad “is worse than the pot calling the kettle black. They’re certainly going to regret it—it looks like a vicious partisan attack.”
Which would be great, except that the story's subheadline, which everyone will read first, says in boldface
"Bush and Kerry camps spar over whose Hitler images are more offensive". < Gritting Teeth >The Kerry campaign never had a f*cking "Hitler image"< /Gritting Teeth >
UPDATE 11:55pm PST 6/25/04
Okay, one final update and then we'll put this baby to bed, but it looks like the full piece to appear in the NY Times at least gets the facts right. Notice it's written by David Sanger and not Nagourney, who appears to have been trying to write a web piece that got put online a bit to quickly. Here's from the full story:
Interspersed twice are images of a shouting Hitler, drawn from a Web spot that MoveOn.org, the Internet advocacy group that runs anti-Bush advertisements, briefly posted months ago in a contest for advertisements about the president.
MoveOn.org quickly removed the advertisement from its site. But it resurfaces in the Bush-Cheney campaign's compendium of clips, and the result appears to liken Mr. Gore's and Mr. Dean's shouting to Hitler's.
and
The videos that had featured Hitler on the MoveOn.org Web site were posted in January, when operatives in both major parties thought Mr. Dean would be the Democrats' presidential nominee. They were posted along with more than 1,500 submissions to a contest soliciting homemade advertisements critical of Mr. Bush. They were soon removed, with Wes Boyd, a MoveOn.org founder, saying they were in "poor taste."
Wallah! There's all the context you need.