I like the VoteVets "AK47 & body armor" ad by Bill Hillsman. I liked it a LOT. It was almost too good to be true.
Turns out I was right -- it is too good to be true. FactCheck.org alleges that, in pursuit of a hard-hitting political message, the VoteVets ad is misleading or downright incorrect in several areas.
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.
UPDATE: Turns out that when you unravel the Senate appropriations debate and votes, it's indisputable that the Republicans voted down the Landrieu amendment to fund protective gear for Guard and Reserve troops. More below the fold.
UPDATE (continued): FactCheck.org is clearly susceptible to picking up spin from the Right-Wing Noise Machine, as apparently happened in this case. Bravo to the online experts who made the connections and refuted the incorrect reporting. Personally, I am glad to learn that the ad is truthful and that progressives continue to take the high road.
In response to the critics in the Comments below, I have a few things to say:
* If you make an unsubstantiated charge in reply to one of my relatively rare Diaries, e.g. by making a comment along the lines of "everybody knows that FackCheck.org is disreputable", expect to get called on it. I think this Diary hit 80+ comments before I saw the first piece of evidence supporting this statement, and IMHO the original statement was never proven.
* I may be articulate and possess some modicum of writing talent, but I (like most DKos readers and visitors) have a job, a family, and community obligations to balance against time spent here. This means that while a Diarist might have time to give a controversial news article a thorough reading, and verify some of the links and/or footnotes (as I did in this case) it's NOT reasonable to expect investigative journalism. It is unreasonable to expect the every Diarist to perform a deep analysis of Senate voting records, news reports, and offline material to support a Diary. That is the power and the forte of distributed research model fostered by communities such as this one.
For more information on the refutation of the FackCheck.org article, please see the front-page post by Kos.
END OF UPDATE.
After years of listening to Republican lies, I want to believe that the Democrats are the "good guys", dedicated to telling the truth and exposing corruption. I know that this is never going to be 100% true, but I can't help feeling let down when we stoop to the level of the lying Republicans.
Here's a link to the article: http://www.factcheck.org/...
A few key excerpts:
Summary
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.
We de-bunked Bush's claim at the time, but now there is even less excuse to make such an accusation because later investigations have made it clear that the initial shortage of up-to-date body armor was not the result of any vote in Congress, but instead was a classic supply-chain foul-up. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office laid the shortage to the inability of manufacturers to meet the Pentagon's sudden increase in demand, and logistical mistakes by the Pentagon in getting the gear shipped to Iraq and distributed.
This is a well-researched article which clearly explains how the VoteVets ad is 'fact-impaired'. Before donating money to support the airing of this ad (which, admittedly, is powerfully moving) ask yourself if we really need to lie and as outrageously as the Republicans to win, and whether the ethical and moral cost is worth it.
I know we can do better. Are we so desperate to win that we must abandon our principles and attempt to deceive the voters into supporting our causes? I thought that was something that Republicans do, not Democrats. America deserves better than Republican-style lying with a Democratic paint job.
-AG