frankenlies.com
#3: Franken and Willie Horton
Franken claims Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes co-directed the infamous 1988 "Willie Horton attack" TV ad during the Bush-Quayle presidential campaign (Lies, page 61 (paperback, p. 65)). The truth? Ailes worked for the Bush camp in the election, but he had nothing to do with the ad; and neither did official Bush-Quayle organizers. The notorious piece was produced by an outside third party called the National Security Political Action Committee.1 Even salon.com, surely a Franken-friendly web site, has reported that the ad had "no provable ties to the Bush campaign" and "according to the official books, they had absolutely nothing to do with it."2
(Note to Franken: Maybe a good number of footnotes or endnotes aren’t a bad idea after all. And maybe getting your facts straight is not a bad idea either.)
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Notes:
1 A Brown University study found at http://www.insidepolitics.org/ps111/independentads.html [Note: Although the tone of this study is not very sympathetic to the Bush camp or to the concept of independent expenditures, the main point is proven. From the study: "In the end, a majority of FEC [Federal Election Commission] Commissioners concluded there had been no illegal coordination between the two campaigns. In the eyes of the federal agency, the NSPAC's Horton expenditures were legal and independent of Bush."]
2 Jake Tapper, “The Willie Horton Alumni Association,”
August 25, 2000,
http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/08/25/horton/index.html [Note:
The official title of the “Willie Horton” ad was “Weekend Passes.” This is not
to be confused with the official Bush-Quayle ad criticizing Dukakis’ furlough
program, “Revolving Doors,” which made no mention or image of Horton.]