The Devil's Adman: GOP Defense Turns Offensive

WHEN Army National Guard Specialist Aaron J. Sissel returns home to Tipton, his fellow Iowans won't see him get off the plane from Iraq. That's because Tipton is in a casket, and the Bush administration has decreed that news

organizations cannot show American troops coming home if they happen to be dead. Iowans, who were treated to long, televised looks at our president dressed up in a flight suit under a "Mission Accomplished" banner, will not be allowed to see the coffin of a man who died in their service.

What Iowans are allowed to see is a new advertisement from the GOP. In it, the president addresses Congress about the threat of terrorism. "Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power," he says, quite correctly. While he says this, though, these words are superimposed on the screen: "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."

That's not so correct.

Misstating the other guy's position is nothing new in politics, nor is the use of the vague designation of "some" people when actual examples can't be found. What is new—what's downright fascinating – is that right now the Republican National Committee is running attack ads in Iowa. Last I checked, the president is running unopposed for the Republican nomination, and the Democrats are still several weeks away from the first round of voting in their own primaries.

So what gives? Perhaps the answer can be found in the commercial, which goes on to urge the following: "Call Congress now. Tell them to support the president's policy of preemptive self-defense." Apparently, the RNC thinks "preemptive self-defense" isn't just a way of dealing with terrorists, it's a way of dealing with pesky Democrats, too.

In this case, preemptive self-defense involves the spreading of nonsense. Let's parse the ad, shall we? Who are these "some" that have attacked Bush for attacking terrorists? Plenty of people have questioned our invasion of Iraq, but not even Republicans still argue that toppling Hussein had much to do with fight-

ing international terrorism.

(In fact, Democratic front-

runner Howard Dean keeps

accusing Bush of not being tough enough on terrorists: Where, he asks, is the effort

to deal with the Saudi component of 9/11?)

The ad also says, "Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others." Again, who? I don't hear any of the major Democrats calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. What the president's opponents are calling for is an explanation of how the administration managed such shoddy use of shoddy intelligence, and led us away from the hunt for bin Laden and his henchmen and toward a quagmire that takes dozens of American lives every month.

Aaron Sissel was a bespectacled 22-year-old, serving with the 2133rd Transportation Company. He was killed in an ambush on the day after Thanksgiving. President Bush will not attend Sissel's (or any soldier's) funeral, nor will he allow the news media to film Sissel's casket when it arrives back on American soil.

What he will do is sneak off for photo ops with live troops, and let his minions in the RNC question the patriotism of anyone who looks out for kids like Specialist Sissel by asking why they've been sent to a country where there don't seem to be any of the promised weapons of mass destruction or even any serious links to al Qaeda.

A few months back, Brandweek got a nasty letter in response to a column I'd written on Ann Coulter. The writer, a principal at a branding agency, mostly resorted to the typical name-calling that passes for political discourse these days, but since he chickened out when asked if he'd like his letter printed, I never got to answer his many charges. I'd like to answer one, belatedly, and that's his assertion that the U.S. media is overwhelmingly liberal.

Please. Would a liberal media sit idly by—as this one is doing—while an administration tells them what images of war's aftermath they can and can't show? Would a liberal media let a commercial like the RNC's go largely unremarked upon? With a "liberal" media like this, who needs preemptive self-defense?