Send a Check

It should be scary that Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group formed by Bush aides, has more than $200 million to attack Democrats in the fall election. But then you read how these wing nuts plan to spend their money and you want to send them a check.

Freedom Watch spent $15 million last summer for an ad campaign defending the Iraq war. Last fall it took out full-page newspaper ads attacking Democrats in Congress for their anti-war votes.

With all that money, don’t these guys have a few bucks for a poll or focus group that might tell them where voters are on this issue?

I have written a book on negative advertising and I can tell you there are worse things than voter backlash. What’s worse is spending money to dig deeper the hole you’re in. That’s where the Republican fringe is and why John McCain as the “pro war” candidate is their presidential frontrunner.

Ari Fleischer, former White House mouthpiece for President Bush, is a Freedom Watch founder. I really thought Ari was smarter than that. Turns out he wasn’t just doing what he was paid to do when he peddled all those lies about the war—he was a believer. (A recent study by two non-profit journalism organizations counted 935 false statements by Bush and administration officials that “led the nation to war under false pretenses.”)

And at what a cost! Nearly 4,000 American troops have been killed, 20,000 more have been maimed. A new congressional study finds that total Iraq costs may approach $3 trillion. We’re fighting the war on borrowed money – Bush not only refused to raise taxes to pay for it but cut taxes on the richest Americans. Costs of the war go beyond the budget numbers. If the president’s 2008 funding request is approved, the full economic cost of the war—including the economic impact of deficit financing, the future care of our wounded veterans, and disruption in oil markets—will total $1.3 trillion by the end of this year.

New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said the numbers are too huge to grasp. “The burden of war handed down to our children is real. The lost opportunities to invest here at home in jobs, productivity, roads, health care and education are real. This year alone, the president asked Congress to spend more on the Iraq war than the nation does annually on the entire American road and highway system.”

Meanwhile, all those folks at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute prattle on about democracy’s “success” in Iraq. And Freedom Watch raises more money to tell voters about it this fall.

Like I say, send a check.

Vic Kamber sizes up how the Pelosi Congress did in its first year with CNBC’s Melissa Francis
Victor Kamber on CNBC

What it all means...

Voters in two tiny, non-representative states have had their say about who the presidential nominees should be for the two major parties. What a waste.

Think of those millions of voters in big states like California and New York who really liked Joe Biden and Chris Dodd for their foreign policy and legislative experience but won’t have the opportunity to cast a ballot for them because they were eliminated at this early stage by voters in Iowa and New Hampshire who care only about God and taxes.

Don’t get me wrong: for the Democrats I believe either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be stronger candidates for the Presidency than Biden or Dodd. I just don’t think a handful of single-message voters in two small states—with an assist from the media-- should winnow the field this early of respected leaders and their fan base around the country.

One thing is clear: the Bush Administration has been such a disaster that the campaign mantra of all candidates in both parties is change.

If either party wanted real change, they would have gotten in line behind Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich. That became difficult after the media eliminated both from recent televised national debates.

Can you imagine the chagrin in the Romney camp, losing out to a guitar-strumming Baptist preacher? Law and Order’s Thompson is probably the first political victim of the writer’s strike—he no longer has L&O’s Dick Wolf writing for him.

I always thought John McCain would be the toughest Republican for Democrats to beat in 2008, but not after his recent appearance on Meet the Press.

Asked THE question about Iraq (“if you knew then, what you know now--no weapons of mass destruction-- would you have invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/ll?”), McCain answered “yes.”

He insisted the war in Iraq was not a mistake—only the handling of it, and said he sees nothing wrong with US troops staying there as many as 100 years.

Well, let’s see how that plays with American voters in November.

Despite concern over the economy and health care, I still believe the overriding issue in this election will be voter anger over an Iraq war that has turned the world against us while costing American lives and treasure beyond comprehension.