The SBVT ad was not that important..... it was the free media coverage...

[kentuck]

of the ad and the charge against Senator Kerry. The ad itself was minimal in the big picture but when every cable network and talk radio station in the country spent hours on it, then it became an issue that had to be addressed.

So the problemn is not with 527's as the Bush Administration would have you believe, it is with the media. The SBVT ad campaign only had about $200K to spend. That is not a lot of money. But they were able to get $20 million in advertising because the media hyped it up. Just like the war, the media will now turn away and pretend they had nothing to do with it.

[charlie105]

1. The irony was that the media kept claiming that the ad buy

was actually a vanity buy. In that it was meant to get free publicity from the media discussing it. And yet, that's exactly what they ended up doing. Offering free airtime.
Way to go Liberal media!

[Dem_Strategist]

2. Thanks Kentuck

That explains my focus on the media in my early threads

[kentuck]

5. You're welcome.

As this morning on CNN, Darran hagan (sp?) was interviewing a spoksman for Hispanics from Univision and they were discussing the Hispanic vote in CO, NM, AZ, and NV in the upcoming election. In the background on the TV, as they were talking, was a clip of Bush tossing a football with some jocks???? What the hell did that have to do with the Hispanic vote???

[wishlist]

3. Kerry gave the media and Bush plenty of time to condemn and debunk

this group and the ad but when Bush and the media were too rotten and cowardly to discredit the ads, he finally had to get tough. I couldn't believe it when the networks were all still covering this ad until today as if the group's criticisms were valid and credible even after O'Neil was caught lying about his political ties and that other vet who originally supported Kerry was caught in multiple flip-flops over his affidavit, even before this third vet today was exposed for lying.

Of course the first reaction from CNN was "Did Kerry go too far" in hitting back at Bush!

[ibegurpard]

4. Correct

And that is why some of us "chicken littles" were screaming that these people needed to be discredited YESTERDAY. It was exceedingly frustrating to see supposed "spokespeople" lamely trying to rebut the charges when all of the information necessary to discredit these right-wing water-carriers was available within HOURS of people hearing about it and doing research on them right here on DU.