White-House-Connected Group Runs Questionable Pro-War Ads

Posted by The Crux | It's sad that millions of Americans don't trust what President Bush says about the Iraq war (or about myriad other issues, for that matter).  Still, the President soldiers on, trying to spread his message -- these days, with "outside" help from a White-House-connected group that's willing to spend $15 million on pro-war ads.

The brilliantly choreographed ads contain well-placed mentions of Iraq and 9/11 -- though President Bush, himself, publicly affirmed that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11.

Two former White House staffers are among the group's leaders: Ari Fleischer and Bradley Blakeman. The Washington Post has a list of the group's larger donors.

The group calls itself  "Freedom's Watch," and I suspect that its members chose this name intentionally, though I can't imagine why.

"Freedom's Watch" is of the same genre as "axis of evil."  Such phrases might compel emotion in people whose primary pleasures are video games and gummy worms, but those phrases weren't aimed at the under-three-feet set.

They were aimed at voter-registration-card-carrying adults.  Apparently, the name's creators don't think much of the average American adult's intelligence.

An anti-war group called "Americans United for Change" plans to duke it out with "Freedom's Watch" in the advertising arena. According to WaPo, however, the anti-war group has not raised nearly as much money as "Freedom's Watch."

Blogger reactions are pretty interesting (below)....

Like me, Notes from the Lounge seemed to find the name "Freedom's Watch" nonsensical:

"It's Like a Crime Watch.  If They See Any Freedom, They'll Report It Immediately."

Akkam's Razor described the group as: "A newly formed pro-war Astroturf -- think false, ideological grassroots organization -- group."

Big Bill's Diamond Blog points out:

"It never gets tiring for pro-war, pro-Bush hacks to find a grieving mom and get her to talk on camera about the war as though it had something to do with fighting Bin Laden— and "preventing another 9/11.” If this doesn’t make you angry, I’m not sure what will."

Mad Kane commented:

Can we ever get rid of Bush’s spinmeister cronies?  Apparently not.  Sure, they eventually quit.  But they stubbornly refuse to stay quit....

And now the dishonorable Ari Fleischer has resurfaced and, once again, he's flacking George Bush's needless war, via the White House front group Freedom's Watch.

The Center for Media and Democracy described the group's efforts this way:

" Ari Fleischer Bush's former PR flack who helped dupe America into attacking Iraq, heads Freedom's Watch.  Fleischer and Bush both still promulgate the Big Lie that Iraq was involved with the 9/11 attacks, a completely discredited falsehood that millions of Americans believe because it is insinuated over and over by the pro-war lobby including Freedom's Watch."

It'll be interesting to see reactions to Freedom Watch's ad campaign after it's been under way for a while.