Here in Michigan, as well as in other battle ground states, an ad is being shown frequently from a right wing independent group, the American Issues Project, which attempts to Swift Boat Barack Obama by distorting the facts about his association with Bill Ayers. One of the local television stations carrying the ad also reported on the controversy surrounding it and clarifies some of the distorted claims made in the ad:
Ayers hosted a fundraiser for Obama early in his political career and made a donation, but that didn’t necessarily launch his career.
The ad doesn’t mention that Obama criticized the U.S. Capitol bombing as “detestable” earlier this year, and that Obama’s interaction with Ayers came during his tenure as a college professor, not as part of the Weather Underground.
The two served on an anti-poverty board Obama said also included Republicans
Remarkably, while many local television stations are running the ad, Fox News declined the ad. Any ad attacking Democrats which is dishonest enough to be rejected by Fox must really be bad.
The Obama campaign has prepared a response ad which so far has only aired in Ohio. The ad can be viewed here. The transcript reads:
With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the sixties, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?
McCain knows Obama denounced Ayers’ crimes, committed when Obama was just eight years old.
Let’s talk about standing up for America today.
John McCain wants to spend $10 Billion a month in Iraq, tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas, selling out American workers.
John McCain, just more of the same.
Obama decided against accepting matching funds in order to be able to have the funds to prepare such response ads in contrast to John Kerry who faced the attacks from the Swift Boat Liars during a time when there were limited funds available for response due to restrictions placed upon him by accepting matching funds. When Obama first gave this reason some criticized him by arguing that there were not any active independent groups as were present in 2004. This attack demonstrates why Obama needed to make the decision he did.
The leadership of the American Issues Project includes a former paid consultant of John McCain. While the ad did not come directly from the McCain campaign, Greg Sargent notes that McCain has issued a statement supporting the arguments made. In a follow up post Sargent notes how McCain promised not to tolerate such tactics when interviewed by Chris Matthews during MSNBC’s s “College Tour” in mid-April:
McCain was asked by Matthews whether he would “sit down with the Democratic nominee” and “agree there will be no outside attacks.” Matthews further asked McCain directly whether he would “agree up front” to “condemn any attack like a swift boating” as the nominee.
“Would you do that?” Matthews asked.
“I would love to do that,” McCain replied, to loud applause.
It gets better. McCain went on to suggest that calling on such groups to stop the attacks basically works.
McCain recalled that during the GOP primary he’d taken an outside group to task and demanded a halt in their activities.
“They stopped,” McCain said. “They stopped.”
“So it works?” Matthews asked.
“I think so,” McCain replied. “I think so.”
Matthews pressed further, asking directly whether there will be “no shots at the other person’s character” about “elitism” or similar topics.
“Yes,” McCain replied.
In that case we shouldn’t be surprised that McCain failed to keep his word regarding condemning Swift Boating considered that he has already been engaged in shots at Obama’s character such as with the celebrity ads.
