The RNC is crying over the very accurate ad that the DNC is running about John McCain. You remember his 'I'll stay in Iraq for 100 years," statement? Well, they are trying to force MSNBC and CNN to stop running the ad. Marc Ambinder reports this: (his link is broken so I'm posting it)
The Republican National Committee wants CNN and MSNBC to stop airing the DNC's new national television advertisement, calling it "false and defamatory" and illegally coordinated.
"This is a complaint about the facts that are being misrepresented in the ad, and this being a deliberate falsehood, that we are saying, stations have an obligation to protect the public from airing a deliberate falsehood," said Sean Cairncross, an RNC lawyer.
The RNC provided no evidence to support their change that the communication was illegally coordinated, aside for a few newspaper articles pointing out that some Democrats work for both a candidate and the committee, like pollster Cornell Belcher. DNC chairman Howard Dean said this morning that neither campaign saw or heard the ad before the put it out.
The RNC is ginning up the threat of legal action to give weight to their criticism of the ad's content. Cairncross would not say whether the party will sue CNN or MSNBC, the two cable networks airing the ad, if they refuse to kill it.
I noticed that FOX News wasn't included in Marc's story so my question to Howard Dean was if the DNC had already submitted the ad to FOX News and if so---did they approve or decline to run the ad?
The DNC said they did send it to FOX News, but so far have not been given a response on it. Maybe they are waiting for the RNC's blessing. Either way, no answer is an answer.
