Sunday, September 2, 2007

AAEI ads are false according to Factcheck.org

FactCheck.org is a non-partisan group that reports on false advertising by politicians. They recently called out AAEI for telling falsehoods - most notably the comment echoed by Jan Schakowsky in the anit-war, anti-Kirk political rally sponsored by AAEI and Chicago Union SEIU last week. The full text of FactChecks analysis can be found here. Excerpts include:

A liberal coalition calling itself Americans Against Escalation in Iraq is running a TV ad that says the U.S. will be in Iraq for a decade to come and that the military draft will be reinstated. But the ad supports those conclusions by twisting the words of two senior generals. The ad falsely claims that Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said that the U.S. will "have to stay there for 10 more" years. Petraeus didn't exactly say that. He said insurgencies tend to last that long and hinted that some U.S. forces may have to stay there for a long time.

The ad says flatly that the draft will have to be reinstated should the U.S. remain in Iraq for a decade. But it supports its conclusion with a selective quote from Bush's war czar, who said no such thing. Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute actually called reimposing the draft "a major policy shift" that isn't currently needed. And the Pentagon said afterward that "no one in the Pentagon is considering a return to a military draft."

Americans AgainstEscalation in Iraq is a coalition composed of several liberal groups, including MoveOn.org, the Service Employees International Union and the CenterforAmerican Progress, which is headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. The coalition announced Aug. 17 that it would run four ads as part of a broader effort to "turn up the heat on members of Congress who have opposed setting a timeline to bring a safe and responsible end to the war in Iraq."

The ad also shows a doctored headline. It cites The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, as saying in an Aug. 10 headline, "Petraeus hints at decade-long Iraq presence." But the actual headline says, "Rep. Schakowsky: Petraeus hints at decade-long Iraq presence." The problem here is that the words in the headline don't represent the conclusions of the newspaper; they are the words of congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who is a co-founder of the House Out of Iraq Caucus, an ally of the coalition running the ads.

My bet is that this is the same shady national outfit, not some home-grown grass-roots effort, that is responsible for last week's political rally masguarading as a discussion on the war in Iraq.
The election is still more than a year away and I am tired of the lies already!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was at the event, and there actually were many people from the district present. The financing might be coming from outside the district, but most of the people are not.

That said, I agree that the event was basically a political rally. Although billed as non-partisan, most of the people there were Democratic activists generally and supporters of Dan Seals particularly. Seals was also there, and Schakowski plugged him briefly during her speach.

Schakowski and the other speakers told the people in the crowd what they wanted to hear, and everyone cheered. It's too bad the attendees aren't holding Democratic politicians like Schakowski to the same standard as Mark Kirk. Schakowski has voted multiple times to fund the war, and that makes her pro-war too.

Anonymous said...

Well we all know that Republicans never lie about anything, and certainly not about getting us into an immoral war under the false pretense of WMDs.

Unincorporated Middle said...

What's your point Harry? Since republicans lie its ok for dems to? I expect more.