Monday, September 17, 2007

Sometimes, I am thoroughly embarrassed by my species.


Only if you dare. And, sadly, that is 15 minutes of your life you'll never get back.

AH, THE HYPOCRISY OF IT ALL
. How quickly can you spot the sheepish back-pedaling and classless goalpost-moving here? [all subsequent emphasis added]

MoveOn told ABC's Jake Tapper that the group paid $65,000 for a Sept. 10 ad accusing General David Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House" in his status reports on Iraq. The Times rate card implies that weekday, full-page, black-and-white cause, appeal or political ads cost $181,692.

A post on the blog Confederate Yankee soon noted the disparity. "While I'm fairly certain that nobody pays 'sticker' prices, 61% off seems a rather sweet deal," his post said. The New York Post picked up the story yesterday, running a piece headlined "Times Gives Lefties a Hefty Discount for 'Betray Us' Ad" and followed up with another article and an editorial today. "Citing the shared liberal bias of the group and the Times," the Post wrote, "one Republican aide on Capitol Hill speculated that it was the 'family discount.'"

Mr. Giuliani, speaking in Atlanta yesterday, demanded that the Times apologize and offer him the same price.


OK, then, Rudy has drawn his line in the sand and demanded exactly the same deal as MoveOn got. And the Times told him to go screw himself, right? Well, no, not quite:

And that's what the Giuliani campaign paid as well, according to one person close to the Times, for its counter ad today berating MoveOn and, in turn, Hillary Clinton for refusing to denounce the "Betray Us" ad.

Oh. So Rudy got his Spider-Man Underoos in a bunch demanding equal treatment, to which the Times replied, "Sure, no problem, here you go," at which point you just know that this is going to end gracelessly and childishly:

A campaign spokeswoman declined to say what the Giuliani campaign paid but said it was told by the newspaper that it was being charged the same standard rate MoveOn was charged. "This was an opportunity for the mayor to draw attention to what was an egregious ad that targeted Gen. Patraeus," she said. "It allowed us to defend him and point out that Democratic candidates have done nothing to condemn the MoveOn.org ad about an American hero."

Here, let me translate that for you: We made a big fuss over money, and it turns out that we were totally out to lunch, so now we're going to pretend it was never about money in the first place and change the subject and hope no one notices that we just got caught with our nutsacks blowing in the breeze.

There. Doesn't that read so much better?

2 comments:

E in MD said...

Expected nothing less. Hypocrisy is the only glue that holds conservative republicans together. That and hated of everyone else that isn't part of their little cadre.

JJ said...

Uncle Jimbo, advertising wizard. Yet he doesn't know that buying adspace and "selling it to his friends" would be breach of contract.

Why am I not surprised he sold space in a bunch of bohunk little newspapers? I used to have a sign on my office wall for guys like him: "I shoot every 3rd salesman, the 2nd one just left".