Rapid Reaction Force

As the campaign heats up, Bush's deceptive advertising will only become more deceptive and more desperate. As often as we can we will try to us our resources to lay out this deception and make clear the extent to which the Bush campaign will lie about Kerry's record. It's important to note that the 80+ million dollars the Bush team has spent on negative ads on Kerry has been, as Bob Shrum is fond of saying, "the most collasal waste of money in American political history." Indeed. For what does Bush have to show for it? A tie nationally and a slight defecit in recent battleground state polling. In other words...NOT MUCH.

Here's our select favorites from the Kerry campaign response to Bush's latest ad, entitled, Yakuza.

BUSH-CHENEY CREDIBILITY GAP:

“…Against the Japanese yakuza. Never mentions Al-Qaeda.”

THE REALITY:

1997: Long Before Bush Had Heard of Taliban (or Afghanistan?) Kerry Was Warning the Nation About the Taliban’s Connection to Terrorism

“In the autumn of 1996, Taliban fighters, Islamic fundamentalists who had taken over Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul, executed the last Soviet installed leader of the country and called for a return to Islamic purity and a repudiation of opium trafficking. But Western intelligence analysts immediately detected evidence that the public statements were a sham to mask continued smuggling by the Taliban forces.” [The New War, Kerry, 1997, p.97]

Credibility is indeed on the line in this election. But here's a laugh out loud funny one:

In 2000, Bush Didn’t Recognize Word “Taliban.” “When a writer for Glamour Magazine recently uttered the word ‘Taliban’ -- the regime in Afghanistan that follows an extreme and repressive version of Islamic law -- during a verbal Rorschach test, Mr. Bush could only shake his head in silence. It was only after the writer gave him a hint (‘repression of women in Afghanistan’) that Mr. Bush replied, ‘Oh. I thought you said some band. The Taliban in Afghanistan! Absolutely. Repressive.’” [New York Times, 6/16/00]

Can anyone imagine Bush writing a book or anything else for that matter, even a simple phrase? Let Freedom Reign, when it's actually Let Freedom Ring...what an idiot).