We knew it was coming and and here it is. The RNC has begun the swift boating of harry Reid in
Las Vegas and around the country.
The Republican National Committee will begin broadcasting television ads in key markets nationally this weekend that suggest Sen. Harry Reid is "playing partisan politics" with the war in Iraq.
The 60-second ads are part of a national campaign by the RNC to push back against increasingly vocal criticism from Democrats about the Bush administration's policy in Iraq.
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The RNC ad begins with comments Bush made in Pennsylvania on Veteran's Day, in a speech that mentioned the bipartisan congressional support for the war in Iraq, but also criticized Democrats for "rewriting history."
"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war," Bush said in Tobyhanna, Pa., on Nov. 11.
The ad tries to paint Democrats as flip-floppers on the war, in similar fashion to the RNC and Bush campaigns' attacks on John Kerry last year.
The spot includes statements from Reid and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Jay Rockefeller. Former President Clinton also appears in the ad.
"Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community," Reid says in the ad, in video taken from a Sept. 18, 2002, CNN "Inside Politics" show. "And I think that the president's approaching this in the right fashion."
The ad is part of an RNC campaign to discredit the critics of the war policy at a time when the president's poll numbers have sunk to record-low levels and a majority of Americans say they do not trust the president.
The RNC would not comment on the size or amount of the ad buy. It is the committee's first television commercial in the current 2006 election cycle, RNC sources said.
"This advertisement shines a bright spotlight on the man from Searchlight's hypocritical and defeatist approach in Iraq," said RNC spokesman Danny Diaz.
It's time for us to push back! My suggestion, we start by calling the office of John Ensign (R-NV) at (202) 224-6244 and demand he stand by his colleague. This would thread would also be a great opportunity to brainstorm any other push-back ideas. Let's get Harry's back!!!