Score one for the WH!
This was brilliant (re: all the calls for the President to “condemn” the anti-Kerry SwiftBoat ads):
President Bush‘s re-election campaign distanced itself from the ad. Campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said the president’s re-election effort “has never and will never question John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. The election will be about the future.” *snip*
In Columbus, Ohio, where the president was traveling Thursday, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan cast the commercial as a product of “unregulated soft money activity.”
“We will not and have not questioned Sen. Kerry’s service record in Vietnam,” he said. “This is another example of the problem of unregulated soft money.”
The president, he said, “thought he got rid of all of this when he signed the McCain-Feingold bill [regulating campaign financing] into law,” adding, “This should all be stopped. It does nothing to elevate the discourse.”
The Bush press secretary said he “hopes the Kerry campaign will join us in calling for an end to all unregulated ads.”
Asked whether the campaign will demand the ad be pulled from the air, he said, “We are calling for a cessation of all unregulated ads and hope the Kerry campaign will join us.”
Excellent strategy! Turn this law around on THEM. That’s as close to a condemnation as we’re going to get from the administration on this. Why should W be obliged to outright condemn this ad? Why are Dems outraged that he hasn’t when they won’t clean up their own back yard? The President will get around to condemning the ad right about the time Wes Clark and other prominent Dems finally get around to publicly condemning Michael Moore for calling the President a “deserter” and Al Gore and the DNC apologize for the numerous Nazi references being thrown about by ‘respectable’ Dems regarding the Republican national leadership.
Oh, and while we’re at it, John Kerry should apologize for lying to the American people about not wanting to reintroduce Vietnam in the political debate. When it serves his purposes, Kerry’s obviously not afraid of flip flopping on his own request, made back in 1992 during the Democratic primaries. Shame on you, John Kerry.