MoveOn.org ... "Shut UP!"

[Charlie Monoxide]

Which is why I said it's a whole other story and it's for the FEC to investigate if there's been a complaint.

However, they did give that rate to Giuliani when he complained that he should get the same rate.

You're obfuscating my question. Where is your proof or source of that statement that the NYT gave a discounted rate to MoveOn?

The fact the NYT gave Giuliani the same rate is because it is the REGULAR (ie no discount) rate ....

Charlie (but that's a whole other story?!) Monoxide

 

[Oliver]

Oliver: With all due respect, and I do respect your opinions and commentary on a variety of subjects...

You're aware of the fact that you just made a lot of enemies
in here, aren't you?

... I think one of the points you seem to miss time and time again is that Freedom of Speech does NOT include Freedom from Ridicule for said exercise in Freedom of Speech.

In otherwords... Freedom of Speech is a two way street.

What does "Freedom from Ridicule mean"?

Maybe I take "Freedom of Speech/Expression" too literally - or it's
a different comprehension about this subject in our differient cultures.

Concerning the topic of this thread: I didn't know that a resolution
has no judicial binding at all since there are also Non-binding resolutions,
but maybe both terms mean the same. So I guess I misinterpreted
the situation regarding MoveOn.org and the Senates addition was
nothing but political charade .

@RandFan: Mike never confirmed that.

 

[corplinx]

While Im rushing to grab my tinfoil hat, how many democrats voted against this vs how many are in the senate?

Doesn't matter. What matters is that the ones who count did not. Clinton, Dodd, Biden, and Obama.

 

[JoeEllison]

I didn't realize there were 75 GOP Senators. Hmmm.

The moveon ad was in incredible poor taste, it was wrong (factually), and insidious. If an ad like that was taken out in, say 1943 in the New York Times calling Eisenhower, or Patton, or any other General a traitor. I'm assuming there'd be some MoveOn and New York Times employees locked up late into 1945.

However bad in taste and inaccurate it was... It was their right to place the ad.

Now, the NY Times giving them a discount rate to them, but not other PACs. Well, that's a whole other story for the FEC to handle.

Your post is wrong(factually).

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Karl Rove Playbook:

Act outraged at anything which the opposition gets publicity over and act as if any opposing groups with rising power are radical extremists. The sheeple suck it up and reverberate it, the news media is easily led around by the nose.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just what is so radical about Moveon I ask? They oppose the Iraq war. So does more than half the country.

Here is more typical rhetoric fostered by the Rove machine:

MoveOn.org got a big break

It seems that the radical anti-war group MoveOn.org got a big break from the New York Times for its disgusting attack ad against General David Petraeus. Today's New York Post reports that the open rate for a full-page like the one MoveOn.org ran is $181,692. Yet, the group paid only $65,000- about a third.

What explains such a huge discrepancy? One Capitol Hill Republican suggested it was a "family discount," given that the Times and MoveOn.org both share a common disdain for our military leadership.

This GOP site repeats the Moveon is radical charge with its attack on Obama.

Obama’s visit comes just days after he surrendered to MoveOn.org’s demands that he reject funding America’s troops unless Congress passes an arbitrary timeline for withdrawal.

“Once again this week, voters saw Barack Obama pander to the liberal extremists at MoveOn.org, despite the fact that Georgia voters soundly reject MoveOn.org’s hate filled rhetoric directed at one of America’s military leaders,” said Sue P. Everhart, Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. “Today, I call on Obama to join Georgians and condemn the actions of this radical left-wing organization.”

And here is more lies and distortions about the Moveon position and ad:

MoveOn.org Smear Of General Petraeus Exposes Cancerous Growth In Democrat Party

MoveOn.org Calls Petraeus a Traitor

Stop the War--And MoveOn.org, By Ed Koch

I think it is fair to state that MoveOn.org is a radical left organization financed in part by George Soros. The supporters of that organization irrespective of how they feel about our involvement in the Iraq war should condemn those in charge of the organization and withhold future contributions to it because of that ad.

No it isn't fair to say and Ed Koch's opinion piece is unfortunate. Koch isn't the strongest Democrat on the block (he supported Guiliani for NY Mayor) though Koch is not quite as far right of center as Lieberman. But John Kerry condemned the ad as well, and too many of the rest of them joined in a condemnation of the Moveon ad. It seems true to form, the Democratic leaders are still being led by the nose themselves when it comes to some of the republican campaign tactics.

Media Matters, also a target of the Rove campaign to call all opposition radical had this to say in 2004:

Conservative media echoed RNC attack on Gore and MoveOn.org

Following former Vice President Al Gore's May 26 speech (sponsored by MoveOn.org and delivered at New York University), conservative commentators echoed misleading statements released by the Republican National Committee (RNC).

In one "RNC Research Briefing," the RNC recycled an attack on MoveOn.org, stating, "Two Ads Comparing President Bush To Adolf Hitler Appeared On MoveOn.org Voter Fund Website," referring to ads that were submitted for a contest held by MoveOn.org. However, as the non-partisan Columbia Journalism Review's website The Campaign Desk noted in its "Distortion" column, while "at least one [ad] was posted briefly on the organization's website ... MoveOn quickly removed it and disassociated itself from the offending ads."

Barbara Comstock -- former director of the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft and former director of research and strategic planning at the RNC -- seems to have taken a cue from her former employer, writing in a May 27 National Review Online commentary, in reference to MoveOn.org executive director Eli Pariser, "His group has promoted ads comparing Bush to Hitler."[An outright lie, of course since Moveon was not responsible for the ad at all and took it off their site after someone unrelated to Moveon posted it.]...

Rush Limbaugh took the RNC assertion about the ad one step further during his May 26 radio show, saying, "MoveOn.org, this is the wacko bunch that is doing ads equating Bush with Hitler." A May 27 article by David Horowitz (co-written by Ben Johnson and published in Horowitz's online FrontPage Magazine) contained similar comments: "Gore appeared before the MoveOn.org, a radical group which had already compared Bush to Hitler."

The Campaign Desk noted that on CNN's American Morning on May 27, Republican convention communications director Mark Pfeifle also repeated the "stunningly false" charge that MoveOn.org "has run ads that compare the president to Hitler."

The RNC statement goes on to make other assertions, including taking financier, philanthropist, and political activist George Soros to task for calling the September 11 attacks "spectacular," although although CIA and FBI officials have used the word "spectacular" in a similiar context. A July 2001 CIA briefing warned of Osama bin Laden's intentions to attack the United States: "The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests." Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet, in his March 9 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned, "A spectacular attack on the U.S. homeland remains the brass ring many strive for with or without Al Qaeda leadership." And CNN reported on March 13 the comments of an FBI counterterrorism official who said, "I believe that we in the U.S. will be hit with another terrorist attack, whether it's a 'spectacular attack' like 9/11..."

The Nation has a good blog post on the subject, which from the title makes you wonder why Kerry was so ignorant to this planned tactic.

Swiftboating MoveOn

In 2004, Houston multimillionaire Bob Perry was the largest donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In 2006, he's using his money to "swift boat" MoveOn.org.

Perry's given $1 million this cycle to the Free Enterprise Fund's "Stop MoveOn.org" campaign, which is running television ads attacking the online organization. Both ads try to link MoveOn to "radical billionaire George Soros," who appears in the spots looking like a crazed burglar.

"MoveOn.org has a radical agenda of tax increases, expanding the welfare state, global governance and socialized government run healthcare," reads a Free Enterprise Fund fundraising pitch. "And since they already own the Democrat [sic] Party, they now want to buy Congress and put their puppets in power."

(Like the Swift Boat Vets, accuracy has never been a strong point of the Free Enterprise Fund. An ad they ran about the estate tax was called "blatantly false" by FactCheck.org.)

When Bush weighs in, he can't hide the fact he's a terrible script reader.

More from the Nation

President Bush has made it clear that he does not read newspapers. And there is little reason to believe that the chief executive spends much time viewing serious news programs before his twilight bedtime.

So it is a bit surprising that he has kept up with the controversy surrounding the MoveOn.org advertisement in the New York Times that urged General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, to put aside administration talking points and speak blunt and necessary truths when he briefed Congress last week.

It is even more surprising that the commander-in-chief would in an official setting take the extraordinary step of attacking the advertisement and the group that placed it.

But so Bush did on Thursday in what will rank as one of the more remarkable -- and politically petty -- moments of a remarkable and politically-petty presidency.

In the New York Times advertisement, MoveOn proposed the anything-but-radical notion that a failure of frankness on the general's part would be a betrayal of the troops and the country. That's hardly an unreasonable suggestion, coming as it does at a critical stage in the occupation when young men and women from the United States are dying at a rate of one every ten hours and when $200 million is removed from the federal treasury each day to maintain what is so obviously a failed mission.

But the president was upset, and he showed it. Tossed a typical soft-ball question at a presidential press conference Thursday morning, Bush responded by saying, "I thought that the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack, not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. military. And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat Party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad. That leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org -- are more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal. And it's one thing to attack me. It's another thing to attack somebody like General Petraeus."

Bush's obviously prepared statement was a clumsy attempt to attack Democratic presidential candidates and congressional leaders. But it created an opening for an unprecedented back-and-forth between the most powerful man in the world and his most aggressive critics. It was hardly necessary on the day when Senate Republicans were engineering a symbolic 72-25 vote rebuking the MoveOn ad that referred to Petraeus as "Betray Us." Had Bush simply offered the standard "I'm not going to get into these political fights" line, or even a pithier "I think the Senate will have something appropriate to say about that," he would have mastered the moment....

"What's disgusting is that the President has more interest in political attacks than developing an exit strategy to get our troops out of Iraq and end this awful war," said Pariser, who argued that, "The President has no credibility on Iraq: he lied repeatedly to the American people to get us into the war. Most Americans oppose the war and want us to get out. Right now, there are about 168,000 American soldiers in Iraq, caught in the crossfire of that country's unwinnable civil war, and the President has betrayed their trust and the trust of the American people."

...makes this a particularly bad day for a president who only yesterday was battered by polling data that confirmed the Petraeus ploy had done nothing to alter anti-war sentiment among the American people.

Presumably, an urgent call will be going out to a certain retired White House political czar. After all, even an electoral street fighter like Karl Rove knows that you don't let a president climb down from his bully pulpit and start wrestling with his loudest critics -- especially a president whose credibility has been stretched beyond he breaking point.

While the Moveon ad obviously has become a distraction from their intended message, surely those of us in this skeptic's forum can see past the bull that completely distorts what that ad actually said.

More importantly, are you going to be distracted by the straw man this ad amounts to, or keep to the subject which is the Petraeus Sept report contained nothing of real substance in it. It was no different than Bush's reports from the past, all is just going peachy keen in Iraq folks. That's what the General said. And afterall, he's a General, he has all sorts of shiny ribbons on his chest, he's an expert, he's surely an honest man who is completely leveling with the American public. Don't question this man of integrity because if you do you are a radical commie pinko who wants America to lose the Iraq war.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Then there is the big lie this ad was subsidized.

Cheney Jumps Into Fray Over MoveOn Ad

The controversy over MoveOn.org’s ad in The New York Times entered its second week yesterday as Vice President Dick Cheney joined the fray.Mr. Cheney, defending Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American forces in Iraq and the object of MoveOn’s ad, said:
“The attacks on him by MoveOn.org in ad space provided at subsidized rates in The New York Times last week were an outrage.”

This of course is a lie, but who notices? The Rove Playbook says facts don't matter. People remember the message, and even if pointed out it was a lie, that part gets forgotten.

Apart from condemning MoveOn, critics have accused The Times of showing a liberal bias by agreeing to run MoveOn’s ad...

...Steph Jespersen, director of advertising acceptability at The Times, said that accepting an ad “does not in any way reflect the official position of The New York Times nor do we need to agree or endorse our advertiser’s message or opinion.” He said that the advertising department accepts ads from across the political spectrum and accepted the MoveOn ad, because it met the department’s standards. The group was charged the paper’s normal rate for stand-by ads....

He said in a telephone interview later that in the MoveOn ad, the phrase “betray us” was posed as a question and was therefore not perceived as libelous.

He also said in his online conversation that the advertising department accepted the ad “because it is our ongoing desire to keep our advertising columns as open as possible to the public, which we believe is a First Amendment responsibility.”

MoveOn has said it paid $65,000 for the ad. While The Times does not discuss its fees for specific ads, it has said it charges $65,000 for full-page, black-and-white “advocacy” ads that run on a seven-day “standby” basis. That means that while the client can express a preference that the ad run on a certain day, there is no guarantee that it will. If a client specifies the day, the cost is higher: $181,000 with an 8 percent discount for a full-page ad, or about $167,000.

“The lower cost of such ads reflects the flexibility that gives us,” Mr. Jespersen said of the seven-day window. “Any political or advocacy group calling up today to request a standby ad would be quoted the same rate that MoveOn.org paid.”

Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate who is among those who criticized the MoveOn ad, paid the same rate for his own advocacy ad that ran in the Friday editions of The Times.

The price is even less, about $51,000, if an advertiser will accept a 14-day window in which an ad might run. The Times offers about 30 different prices for ads, depending on their size, placement, color, timing and whether the advertiser is a high-volume customer. There are no “standby” rates for color ads because the presses cannot accommodate color on short notice.

Critics have said that the MoveOn ad, which ran last Monday, was not subject to “standby” rules because it used the word “today” in the text, suggesting advance knowledge that the ad would run on Monday, when General Petraeus began his testimony to Congress.

But Mr. Jespersen said that the advertising department routinely notifies advertisers a day in advance that the ad will run in the next day’s paper. And at that point, he said, “the advertiser can make minor changes in the text.”

But who cares about facts. You can smear the NYTimes and Moveon at the same time. Then when the Times publishes anything negative you attack the messenger. When the Times publishes anything positive, no one will remember your attacks on the so called "liberal media".

 

[Puppycow]

You're obfuscating my question. Where is your proof or source of that statement that the NYT gave a discounted rate to MoveOn?

The fact the NYT gave Giuliani the same rate is because it is the REGULAR (ie no discount) rate ....

Charlie (but that's a whole other story?!) Monoxide

This NY Post story says they gave a discount. (I'm not sure the story is correct, but that's what it says pretty plainly).

According to Abbe Serphos, director of public relations for the Times, "the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,692."

A spokesman for MoveOn.org confirmed to The Post that the liberal activist group had paid only $65,000 for the ad - a reduction of more than $116,000 from the stated rate.

A Post reporter who called the Times advertising department yesterday without identifying himself was quoted a price of $167,000 for a full-page black-and-white ad on a Monday.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

See my post above Puppycow's explaining what the discount ad rate was really about. The claim Moveon got some special treatment is an outright falsehood.

I would wager to say the New York Post reporter knew full well he was printing cherry picked data.

 

[Puppycow]

Sorry skeptigirl. I hadn't seen your post. Since there's only a 1 minute difference, you apparantly posted while I was writing my post. So I stand corrected.

 

[Vim Razz]

This NY Post story says they gave a discount. (I'm not sure the story is correct, but that's what it says pretty plainly).

The NY Post is pretty much a tabloid at this point. They dont do a lot of fact checking, unfortunately.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sorry skeptigirl. I hadn't seen your post. Since there's only a 1 minute difference, you apparantly posted while I was writing my post. So I stand corrected.

No worries mate. It takes a village to collect all the facts.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

See my post above Puppycow's explaining what the discount ad rate was really about. The claim Moveon got some special treatment is an outright falsehood.

I would wager to say the New York Post reporter knew full well he was printing cherry picked data.

Thank you SkeptiGirl for the research and posting ....

Charlie (lazy SOB) Monoxide

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You're welcome, Charlie (is really a nice guy) Monoxide.

 

[Dancing David]

So? What was the purpose of the resolution? :
"Pointless blabbering and wasting time"?

You left out spending money and getting re-elected.

That the Congress for you.

 

[Dancing David]

I heard some remarks Pres Bush recently made on this topic, in which he stated that moveon.org, in slandering General P, was attacking also all of the troops.

Actually, Mr President, no, they were going after you when attacking the general who you sent to Congress to testify about how things are going in Iraq.

DR

Thank You Darth, i had a buddy who served in WWII, he didn't trust generals or politicians. i am not saying that applies to you.

 

[Ziggurat]

See my post above Puppycow's explaining what the discount ad rate was really about. The claim Moveon got some special treatment is an outright falsehood.

It's still possible Moveon got special treatment, although demonstrating that is probably impossible even if it happened. If the NYT went out of their way to ensure that the add was placed the day they wanted it to be placed, for example, then the rate they were given would indeed be a discounted rate. But we don't have any evidence that was the case, it remains only a possibility, so unless someone within the NYT comes forward, we have to proceed as if it didn't happen that way.

Edit: Perhaps I spoke too soon. It appears that they were given favorable treatment:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09/23/2007-09-23_ny_times_admits_petraeus_ad_sold_to_move.html
""We made a mistake," Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, told the newspaper's public editor.

Mathis said an advertising representative left the liberal group [Moveon.org] with the understanding that the ad would run that Monday even though they had been charged the standby rate."

 

[NoZed Avenger]

You're obfuscating my question. Where is your proof or source of that statement that the NYT gave a discounted rate to MoveOn?

The fact the NYT gave Giuliani the same rate is because it is the REGULAR (ie no discount) rate ....

Charlie (but that's a whole other story?!) Monoxide

But I think the ad violated The Times’s own written standards, and the paper now says that the advertiser got a price break it was not entitled to.

* * *

. . . MoveOn.org paid what is known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising sales representative made a mistake.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/opinion/23pubed.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

[Elind]

So? What was the purpose of the resolution? :
"Pointless blabbering and wasting time"?

The point of the resolution was to say that many people considered it as more than bad taste, but a despicable partisan mud slinging exercise which, in addition, was given a possibly illegal break amounting to a campaign contribution, by the NYT.

But anyone who reads knows that, so why are you doing this "Pointless blabbering and wasting time"?

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

<Homer voice> Mmmmm, crow, arrrrrhhhh <\Homer voice>

Todays (Sunday) NYT editorial section stated that the NYT gave a discount to MoveOn by mistake. MoveOn should have been charged $142,000, not the $65,000 they paid.

I'm not sure that MoveOn is at fault, but it seems the NYT did screw up or they're just spinning the story ....

Charlie (more facts needed) Monoxide

PS Ooops, I didn't catch the posting that says the same as mine.