Emotionally effective, if fundamentally misleading in all kinds of ways -- not least of which is suggesting the the Iraq War is all about fighting the people who attacked us on 9-11.
The ad's message "It's no time to quit; It's no time for politics" is especially ironic since this video campaign was produced and funded by Republican operatives and targeted on the districts of wavering and vulnerable Republican legislators, with the clear purpose of putting political pressure on them to continue backing the President's war.
Joe Conason, writing at Slate:
Unlike VoteVets.org, the organization founded by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans that has emerged as one of the most effective critics of the war, Freedom's Watch uses killed and wounded veterans and their families in its advertising, but is not operated or supported by actual veterans. Instead, the founders of Freedom's Watch include notable Republican fundraisers such as Melvin Sembler, the shopping mall magnate whose rewards have included ambassadorial posts in Australia and most recently in Italy; Anthony Gioia, a Buffalo, N.Y., macaroni manufacturer who served as ambassador to Malta; Howard Leach, a wealthy California grocery distributor who served as ambassador to France; and Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who is among the richest men in the world. The supporters listed in Freedom's Watch's first press release also include at least eight more major Republican donors.
But all those generous gentlemen are probably just providing the money for the national advertising rollout. The brains behind this operation are former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who spent many hours on the press podium repeating the same misleading messages now promoted by Freedom's Watch, and Brad Blakeman, a former White House and campaign scheduling director for President Bush who frequently appears on cable TV to advocate administration policy as a "Republican strategist." Executing their strategy are the sharp public relations consultants at Jamestown Associates, a nationally known Republican firm whose clients have included dozens of GOP officeholders, a variety of conservative organizations and fronts, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Someone with the nom-de-web EnricoFermiTheThird posted a brilliant response on YouTube suggesting (without saying a word) that the Freedom's Watch campaign is a last-gasp propaganda effort by an immoral regime about to lose a major war.
The comparison is apt in another way. The Freedom's Watch campaign clearly suggests that if the US loses in Iraq, it will be because anti-war forces, lefties, Democrats and other weak and disloyal elements sold out American troops and betrayed their sacrifices. This is the core story-line of the classic fascist propaganda weapon, the "stab-in-the-back" myth and a central part of the Republicans' proto-fascist political strategy.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan sees similar tendencies in the President's recent VFW speech.
