Campaign ads are under fire for inaccuracy

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/25/politics/campaign/25ADS.html

A record year for political advertising has brought with it a hail of televised exaggerations, omissions and mischaracterizations that pollsters say seem to be leaving voters with mistaken impressions of Senator John Kerry and President Bush.

The degree to which the advertisements push the facts, or go beyond them, varies by commercial. But both campaigns are being criticized as frequently going beyond the bounds of truth.

In three of its advertisements, Mr. Bush's campaign has said Mr. Kerry would raise taxes by at least $900 billion in his first 100 days in office. Mr. Kerry has no such plan.

In an advertisment for Mr. Kerry, an announcer said, "George Bush says sending jobs overseas makes sense for America." Mr. Bush never said that. A report to Congress by his top economic adviser said cheaper production of goods overseas had long-term benefits but did not make the plain case that domestic job losses were a good thing.

Outside groups are getting into the act as well.
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with factcheck.org. They do all the dirty work I would love to do but don't have the time or resources. I agree that it's both sides doing "playing politics". I think there should be more regulation of these ads, I don't think a person who wants to be president should put out any ad that is a blatent lie.

I sent them a blistering e-mail earlier today about their review of a Kerry ad. Fact Check takes the narrowest and most literal interpretation of events and accused Kerry of being misleading. They tried to claim that seniors really did get a Prescription Drug Benefit, and that fact that it cost the taxpayers nearly $500 billion is proof enough that it's effective.

They left out that Bush prohibited Medicare to negotiate with drug manufacturers to get lower drug prices and banned imports from Canada. It also ignores that fact that the price seniors pay today could double or triple overnight (well, not until after November 2, anyway) with no regulatory oversight. Fact Check is either a) dead wrong or b) seriously deluded or c) whoring for the RNC.

and to fact check their ads thoroughly. You know the Republicans will lie, misrepresent and spin mischievously in their ads and will wax indignant about any falsehoods in Kerry's ads.

They also need to do the quick response thing that Clinton did in his first campaign.

...have been plenty of posts in the forums at www.johnkerry.com pointing them out.

They just change the names.

It's exactly what's wrong with the media. They try to claim that running such a story proves that they are unbiased, especially because they criticize both candidates. In truth, they are quite biased towards the ads that lie the most, and Republicans especially rely on that.

Say Bush runs an ad claiming Kerry is a neo Nazi who has slaughtered goats in his basement while making love to gay dwarves dressed as Jesus. Kerry runs an ad saying Bush has spent 90 billion dollars on a failed missile program. They will say both ads are misleading, because there is no evidence to support the Bush claims about the goat, and Bush only spent 89.5 billion dollars on a failed missile program. Thus, to the media, both sides are equally dishonest.