DES MOINES, Iowa — Leading Democrats demanded Sunday that the Republican National Committee take down a new television ad defending President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and charging that Bush’s critics were attacking him "for attacking the terrorists."
Democrats have been fuming at the Republican National Committee ad, which is airing in Iowa to coincide with the Democratic debate. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (S.C.) called it "repulsive and outrageous" and said Democrats oppose the way Bush has managed the situation in Iraq, not the war against terrorism. "It’s wrong. It’s erroneous, and I think that they ought to pull the ad," he said on NBC’s "Meet the Press."
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., answered the ad with one of his own, which will begin airing today in Iowa, saying Americans are united in the war on terror. "The problem is you (Bush) declared, ‘mission accomplished’ when you had no plan to win the peace and handed out billions in contracts to contributors like Halliburton," an announcer says.
Dean used the Republican ad to raise money on the Internet for an ad of his own that attacks Bush’s Iraq policies, while retired Gen. Wesley Clark said on CBS’s "Face the Nation" that the ad implies that Bush’s critics are "somehow aiding the enemy." The ad, he said, "violate(s) the pledge the president made not to exploit 9-11 for political purposes."
Democratic anger at the commercial did not bring about any hiatus in the intra-party warfare among the candidates for the presidential nomination, however. On the eve of today’s candidate debate, Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and former Vermont governor Howard Dean traded some of the toughest rhetoric in their rapidly escalating battle.
Gephardt accused Dean of cutting programs for poor and disabled people in Vermont, and Dean accused Gephardt of producing "empty rhetoric" in Congress and of siding with Bush on Iraq "at the expense of our country and our party."
The debate is scheduled for 1 p.m. PST on MSNBC.
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