Large Association of Movie Blogs
Large Association of Movie Blogs

Monday, October 02, 2006

Election Year Advertising, 2004 Style by Paul F. Etcheverry

We're going to endure some charming examples of political ads in the coming weeks. Just in case you've been avoiding the inevitable sleazy, manipulative political commercials like mid-14th century folks wanted to avoid the black plague - and about as successfully - here's a reminder from the 2004 elections, a sterling example of deep pockets democracy in action.

The Swift Boat Veterans For Truth added yet another hard-hitting attack ad to their election arsenal. The latest alleges that John Kerry was not only "unfit for command" and loathed by his comrades in war, but brazenly listened to provocative materials throughout his Vietnam service.

The ad presents grainy black and white photos of a battery-powered cassette player - a newfangled contraption in the late 1960's - accompanied by two cassettes, one labeled. "Now if you zoom in real close on the labeled cassette," Swift Boat spokesman Richard O'Neill Corsi Rove claims, "you'll see the ugly, disgusting truth, which is crystal clear."

"I Enjoy Being A Girl" by Eartha Kitt

"The proof is in the proverbial perverted pudding," Rove charges, "John Kerry was listening to ‘I Enjoy Being A Girl’ in the Mekong Delta! Only a subversive, a traitor would listen to Eartha Kitt while shirking his patriotic duty and merely being struck by shrapnel and rice fragments. Do you want such scandalous, un-American behavior from your Commander-In-Chief?"

Why was this never disclosed to the public? "As a matter of fact", Rove adds, "the F.B.I. knew all about this in 1969, but the liberal president, Richard M. Nixon, suppressed the information." Sources close to the F.B.I., however, insist that the order came from the agency director.

Hoover, it turns out, was quite the fan of "I Enjoy Being A Girl", even owned a pristine vinyl pressing of Nancy Kwan's rendition of the ditty from Flower Drum Song.

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