As I'm sure most of you know, for advertising the Federal Trade Commission regulates advertisements by companies to ensure that they are truthful. In other words, companies cannot willy nilly make baseless claims about their products and get away with it (for long, at least...they will eventually get a "put up or shut up notice" by the commission.)
Why are there not similar laws in place for political advertisements? Bush ads about Kerry have either been blatantly false or exceptionally misleading (for example, Kerry voting 350 times to raise taxes which is not true). And to be fair, some Kerry ads have been inaccurate as well. More recently, we have the issue with the Swift Boat veterans whose claims have been for the most part debunked. How can these ads still run when they're patently false? Would it be a bad idea to have a non-partisan commission like the FEC review ads of this nature an ensure that they are at least somewhat factually accurate?
Why are there no fairness laws for political ads?
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Natorgator
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Durandal
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Bush's campaign managers are masters of spin. This has been going on since the build-up to the Iraq War. They've never made blatantly false statements, and unless you can prove that they said things they knew to be false, then you can't do anything.
For example, one of the anti-Kerry ads featured a list of three tax cuts which Kerry had voted against. In reality, all three cuts were part of a single bill, and they were attached as riders to a defense appropriations bill which Kerry disagreed with. So technically, Kerry did vote against all three, so the ad didn't lie. But it gave the impression that he voted three separate times against tax cuts, which establishes a trend of voting against tax cuts in the viewer's mind.
They did the same thing in connecting Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Bush never explicitly came out and said that Hussein was involved, but he made sure to use the words "Iraq," "Hussein," "terror," and "September 11th" in the same sentence frequently enough that people would begin to hear it as "Hussein is a terrorist who had something to do with September 11th." What Bush actually said was something like, "Hussein's government sponsors terrorism, and terrorists were responsible for 9/11." Now, the first part of that sentence in and of itself is blatantly false, but that's a separate issue.
The point is that Bush's campaign managers know exactly how to say something that will convey a false impression without actually lying. This goes on in politics all the time. Clinton was great at it, but I think Bush's boys put him to shame in this department.
For example, one of the anti-Kerry ads featured a list of three tax cuts which Kerry had voted against. In reality, all three cuts were part of a single bill, and they were attached as riders to a defense appropriations bill which Kerry disagreed with. So technically, Kerry did vote against all three, so the ad didn't lie. But it gave the impression that he voted three separate times against tax cuts, which establishes a trend of voting against tax cuts in the viewer's mind.
They did the same thing in connecting Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Bush never explicitly came out and said that Hussein was involved, but he made sure to use the words "Iraq," "Hussein," "terror," and "September 11th" in the same sentence frequently enough that people would begin to hear it as "Hussein is a terrorist who had something to do with September 11th." What Bush actually said was something like, "Hussein's government sponsors terrorism, and terrorists were responsible for 9/11." Now, the first part of that sentence in and of itself is blatantly false, but that's a separate issue.
The point is that Bush's campaign managers know exactly how to say something that will convey a false impression without actually lying. This goes on in politics all the time. Clinton was great at it, but I think Bush's boys put him to shame in this department.
Damien Sorresso
"Ever see what them computa bitchez do to numbas? It ain't natural. Numbas ain't supposed to be code, they supposed to quantify shit."
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"Ever see what them computa bitchez do to numbas? It ain't natural. Numbas ain't supposed to be code, they supposed to quantify shit."
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Stormbringer
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Because politics is a far more subjective subject than say medication, cars, or cereal. A lot of it centers on matters of opinion that are being debated. Generally, ads that contain proveable lies are stomped out. The problem is it's rare to get that.Why are there not similar laws in place for political advertisements?
And to be frank, that's been a tradition from day here in America. This election is pretty damn tame compared to some. Back in the day, there were people that opened a newspaper company simply to slander John Adams and the opposition replied in kind. It's been a political tradition and most people would rightfully have a problem with trying to regulate cotent so tightly.
