Last Wednesday's edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews featured Charlie Jarvis, Chairman & CEO of USANext. Matthews demanded answers for internet advertisements that portray the AARP as anti-military and promoting gay marriage. The distorted attacks are a direct response to AARP's strong opposition to Bush's privatization efforts for Social Security.
Jarvis became a disoriented and quiet when questions about the old swift boat veterans were raised, and actually made a few misstatements (aka lies)...
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the heat of this campaign. By hiring the firm that did the attack ads, the very effective swift boat ads, are you raising the level of the fire here?
JARVIS: Well, they`re close friends. I`ve known them for years.
MATTHEWS: Don`t they have an office like in the same annex, basically the same floor you guys do?
JARVIS: No. No. They`re nowhere near us.
MATTHEWS: They`re not?
JARVIS: They`re in another city. But that was close, Chris.
MATTHEWS: No, because we`re trying to figure out the ad company that`s doing the ads. And they had--seemed to have the same address as you guys.
The question of the day was why USANext posted the bizarre and deceitful ad against AARP:
MATTHEWS: Well, why do you bring in gay marriage in and attacking the troops, if you`re caring about the issues of seniors?
JARVIS: That was a tiny little ad on one Web site.
MATTHEWS: Who approved it? Did you?
JARVIS: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Why did you approve it?
JARVIS: Because I wanted to test to see how long it would take for the liberal blogs in this country to go berserk over a single image.
What a weirdo! Willing to dedicate resources, simply to test the response time of the dailykos.com community? I don't think so. He clearly didn't expect to be exposed.
Ref's:
- MSNBC Hardball Transcript for Feb 23, 2005
- Jarvis defends USANext attacks on AARP