In its response ad late yesterday, the Kerry camp recycled a famous line from Ronald Reagan in 1980: "There he goes again. George Bush said Iraq was 'mission accomplished.' Sixteen months later, he still doesn't get it. Today: over 1,000 U.S. soldiers dead, kidnappings, even beheadings of Americans. Still Bush has no plan what to do in Iraq. How can you solve a problem when you can't see it?"
Beyond the charges and images, the nub of the argument is "decisiveness versus truthfulness," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication. "Kerry is trying to hold Bush accountable for how we got into the war and Bush is saying you have no idea of what Kerry would have done or would do in the future and you can't trust him on this issue."
Over the weekend, the conservative 527 group Progress for America Voter Fund released a commercial showing disturbing images of bin Laden, Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and terrorist attacks in Russia, Spain and at the World Trade Center. "Would you trust Kerry against the fanatic killers?" it asked.
The Democratic National Committee responded yesterday with an ad in the same two states -- Iowa and Wisconsin -- that shows the president saying of bin Laden, six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, "wanted, dead or alive." Six months later, Bush is seen saying, "I don't know where he is," followed by 2004 headlines about bin Laden planning further attacks.
The use of Bush's comment that he did not know bin Laden's whereabouts was selective, because the president said in the same answer: "I know the man's on the run, if he's alive at all."
Kerry released an ad Saturday night, quoting a New York Times editorial as accusing the Bush campaign of "despicable politics" and "an un-American way to campaign."
All told, Kerry and the Democrats have put out three response ads in 48 hours, underscoring their determination to quickly return fire but also allowing Bush and his allies to set the parameters of the battle.
MoveOn.org PAC, a liberal ally of Kerry's, plans to join the fray tomorrow with an ad in which the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq tearfully challenges the president's rationale for war.
