| ...in this Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.
Apparently the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is a "nonprofit and historically nonpartisan" 501c(3) think tank has formed a 501c(4) issue advocacy group called Defense of Democracies (so there's, you know, no chance of getting the two confused) that's behind these ads. The advocacy group is run by Clifford May, who's also in charge of the Foundation (but, you know, the two organizations are totally independent; pay no attention to the fact that they work out of the same offices)... and May is also a former RNC Communications Director.
(I actually meant to post this as a comment to the Thursday Read 'Ems thread, but for some bizarre reason it wouldn't stick there. There's more below the fold...) |
| Because it's not a tax-exempt nonprofit, Defense of Democracies doesn't have to disclose its donors... and it hasn't. One of the resigning Foundation directors (Rep. Marshall of Georgia) suggested to May in a letter that the ad campaign was funded by telecoms, since the only issue really in dispute is telecom immunity. May denied taking any telecom money, but didn't rule out doing so in the future. Telecom company sources have denied involvement in the ad campaign, but their own lobbying on the issue -- including threats not to cooperate with eavesdropping requests, as reveal in a letter from AG Mukasey and Intelligence Director McMonnell -- have been conveniently parallel to the attack ads.
May professes sadness over the Democratic resignations from the Foundation board, claiming that he believed "this was not a partisan issue" becase the Senate bill, which contains the immunity provision, passed with bipartisan support. Even pro-immunity Democratic senators like Jay Rockefeller, though, are torqued off by the ad campaign and the hard line the administration is taking on the issue.
And, of course, if you've been following the local coverage on this, you've heard Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy point out how odd it is that a supposedly nonpartisan issue ad is only being run in a small number of targeted Democratic House districts. We all recognize these ads as stylistically similar to the scurrilous anti-Murphy ads run by the Nancy Johnson campaign; Rep Tim Walz's press secretary compares them to the 2002 smears of Max Cleland. Either way, they ads are vile fearmongering, and any claim of nonpartisanship is laughable.
Around here we've been known to beat up on Joe and Chris when we're not convinced they're being tough enough. In this case, they're fighting the good fight, and getting rabbit punched by the bad guys for their trouble: We need to make sure we show 'em all the love we can! |
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