Bogus Bias

When it comes to ad campaigns in the presidential elections, nothing is more pleasing to any candidate than the ablity to place blame and shame on one's competition -- especially when the blame can also be cast on the competition's supporters.

According to the New York Daily News, Republican hopeful and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani took a golden opportunity this week to slam The New York Times, the left-favoring MoveOn.org, and political opponent, Hillary Clinton. The cause for the stir was an ad run in the Times that portrayed commander General Petraeus as "General Betray Us". The ad was apparently purchased by MoveOn.org which paid $64,575 for it to be run any day of the week the Times chose. Giuliani closed in on the two organizations claiming that MoveOn.org had gotten a discount on its ad due to its left-sided sympathies. He also pointed out the shame in putting such "unpatriotic" propaganda in a national newspaper. Not being one to settle for less, Giuliani also used the situation to call out Senator Clinton for not criticizing the ad. He also demanded that the Times give him the same price as MoveOn.org to run his own "pro-Petraeus" ad in Friday's edition.

It seemed as if Giuliani had everyone where he wanted them until the rest of the facts came to surface. The Times claimed that $64,575 is the cost of any ad that they are given to run on any day they choose, while $181,692 is the cost of an ad to be run on a certain day, therefore, MoveOn.org received the same treatment as any other customer. To give Giuliani his asking price for a certain day would have cost the Times well over $100,000.

While these facts show Giuliani's accusations of the Times to be unfounded, his attempted shaming of Senator Clinton also seemed to flop. For him to call her out specifically, especially when she did not even openly support the ad, made the effort seem forced and irrelevant. It's also interesting that these claims of "unpatriotic" behavior came at the end of the week in history that gave Giuliani his image as the super-patriot. With his part in Sept. 11 playing a huge role in his campaign, this comes as little surprise. His new quote which he touts on his campaign Web site reads, "These times call for statesmanship, not politicians spewing political venom." Ironically, this line is run below a video his campaign has put up denouncing Senator Clinton for changing her position on the war in Iraq and claims that she should "apologize" to America's troops because she is "turning her back on them". In response, Clinton's campaign released a statement proclaiming, "Mayor Giuliani supports George Bush's Iraq policy and believes it is working, [while] Sen. Clinton knows it isn't and will keep up her efforts to end the war."

While Giuliani continues to dwell on this issue by keeping up a constant dialogue on his Web site, this voter wonders when he will step up and really address the issues instead of pointing out the supposed weaknesses of others.