MoveOn Scuttles Racially Charged Political Ads Featuring Katrina Victims

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The New York Sun

A leading grassroots liberal group, MoveOn.org Political Action, scuttled plans yesterday for a television advertisement using images of African-American victims of Hurricane Katrina to raise questions about the civil rights views of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts Jr.


The organization’s advocacy director, Benjamin Brandzel, disclosed the planned television spot in an interview with USA Today on Wednesday, the reporter who conducted the interview, Mark Memmott, said yesterday.


In a statement, MoveOn.org denied that any such ad was in the works and contended that the story resulted from a “misunderstanding.”


“We have no plans, and never had plans, to produce such an ad,” the group’s executive director, Eli Pariser, said.


USA Today’s story quoted Mr. Brandzel saying that the plight of the poor and largely African-American evacuees underscored the dangers of Mr. Roberts’s views on civil rights. “The connection is obvious,” Mr. Brandzel was reported to have said.


Mr. Memmott said the group’s denial should be parsed carefully. “They’re not saying Ben Brandzel didn’t say this,” the reporter noted.


Mr. Brandzel did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story. A spokesman for MoveOn.org, Trevor Fitzgibbon, said he did not know whether the quotes were correct or not.


While MoveOn.org forcefully repudiated any plans for an ad linking the suffering in the Gulf Coast to the nomination fight, earlier in the week the group expressed a similar line of criticism in an official statement about President Bush’s decision to nominate Judge Roberts to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist. In an apparent reference to shortcomings in the hurricane response, Mr. Pariser said, “We’re now seeing the danger that arises from an ideology that opposes an active role for government.”


In addition, top Democrats have indicated that they believe the government’s handling of the storm raises questions that Judge Roberts should address at his confirmation hearings. On Tuesday, Senator Kennedy, a Democrat of Massachusetts, delivered a floor speech in which he linked the plight of the poor to the pending nomination. “As a nation, we must be sensitive to this inequality – sensitive as we respond to Katrina, and sensitive, too, as we select new justices for the Supreme Court,” the senator said. “That’s a critical question for Judge Roberts. Can he unite America for the future?”


A spokesman for a group backing Judge Roberts, the Committee for Justice, said efforts to draw the storm-related issues into the nomination hearings demonstrate desperation on the part of the nominee’s opponents. “It is so over the top I cannot imagine that less than 80% of American people would find it absolutely eye-rolling and reprehensible,” the spokesman, Sean Rushton, said. “It’s sort of absurd on its face.”


Despite the ad flap, MoveOn.org remained active yesterday, bringing storm evacuees to the White House to denounce President Bush in connection with the federal response to the hurricane. Hundreds chanted “Shame on Bush!” as they marched outside the fence of the executive mansion.


The New York Sun

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