Rebuttal to Wolves

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

A reader pointed me to this Slate article that offers a rebuttal to Wolves, which I have dubbed the "coolest ad of the election season."

The author, Fred Kaplan, defends Kerry against the ad's claim that he voted to "slash" intelligence spending. Notice however that Mr. Kaplan does indeed conceded that over the years Kerry has voted to cut the intelligence budget, just not all at once the way the ad would have you believe and that it's not fair to say that Kerry "slashed" it. Mr. Kaplan also points out that while the ad mentions "liberals in Congress" responsible for "slashing" the budget, the sponsor of the Senate amendment was Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. Right, but calling Arlen Specter a Republican is like calling Zell Miller a Democrat.

Is the ad misleading? Maybe, but no one ever said political ads were supposed to be fair. I still think it's a fair commercial and will have an impact on the undecided voters who are tired of the Michael Moore-types downplaying the threat of terrorism. Even if Kerry has a plan to keep America safe, he is not being helped by the many Hollywood liberals and celebrities preaching the "You can't hug with nuclear arms" line.