I find the Republican ad laughable.  It is a total farce.  I just don't see anybody buying this crap anymore.

Remember President Bush's own record - and words - when it comes to Osama Bin Laden:

"So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you...I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."
...President Bush, March 13, 2004.

"Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations. Of course we're worried about Osama bin Laden."
October 13, 2004.

For the details, see:
"Bush Flip-Flops on Bin Laden."

I know - we got him.  And Iraq's so much safer now on account of that, isn't it?

That is what I call an ad! Yeeeha!

Can't we take the LEAD in producing a small ad buy for the purpose of generating a ton of free media? Why are we always reacting?

Sort of like that "coffins" ad before Rahm wimped out...

Let's not forget that the Bush Administration paid absolutely no attention to terrorism before 9/11 and that if the Supreme Court hadn't stolen the election the World Trade Center may still be standing today.

The message is easy. George W. Bush can't be trusted.  He spilled American blood and treasure preventing Saddam Hussein from giving weapons he didn't have to terrorists he didn't know. Isn't the war on terror just too important to let George W. Bush and his enablers lose it for us? That should be our message.

These days the only place you'll find Osama bin Laden is in Republican ads.

totally agreed, lets take the fight straight to their own turf. this whole bs about "fighting them over there" ignores the fact that we've unwittingly handed political power to terrorists and encouraged the creation of more. bombings in London, Madrid, Bali? how can Republicans say they're making us safer? what happened to "attacks on 911 were attacks on all of us"? if that's true, then attacks on London were attacks on us as well.

so fine, let's take the ticking bomb motif-- bombs need to be defused, and Republicans keep cutting the wrong wire. i'd like to see an ad on that.

To hit the enemy hard, in wartime - to stop terrorism before it starts.

The ending of this ad should have been -
(instead of is it a, or b) some declarative statement about how the great wars have always been won together - i guess. I don't know. tired.

The DNC should use Tester's Ad which asks the question, " where is Osama Bin Laden?".  Remake it for a national audience.  

Kirsten Gillibrand

has made the Iraq War and sane, rational security policy front and center in her campaign against John Sweeney.

Kirsten Gillibrand

... will be live-blogging in the Blue America fund-raising series at:

Firedoglake
Saturday, Oct. 21
2:00 PM eastern

Please spread the word and join Kirsten at 2:00 PM!

Peace,

Andrew

Why do they use them because they work stupid

this ad will not be changing any minds ... at best it will only play to the 29% who would vote for the gop anyway.  Too late!

"We should be capturing Bin Laden instead of putting him in commercials"

Having not caught Osama isn't the point anymore; the point is precisely that Bush doesn't care about anything until it affects him personally.  Same for the Republican Congress.  Remember the Tsunami in Indonesia, Bush didn't say squat for days till his poll numbers went down, and suddenly he cared.  Remember Katrina, didn't care till the media started mocking him and his poll numbers went down, then he acted like he cared. Foley is the same thing, keep the pedophile in his safe seat till the scandal affects the House leaders - then he needs to resign, then there needs to be an investigation, then the ethics committee needs to convene.  Republicans care about US (that's the U.S.A. and us folks) only when not appearing to do so threatens their hold on power.  And that point is far more resonant, in my humble opinion, then all the uncaught terrorists in the world.  So much so that I bet if Bush caught Bin Laden today, nobody would care and it wouldn't give him or the Republicans more than a short blip in the polls (and not enough of a blip to matter on Nov 7.)  Not to mention that setting up the actual capture as the criteria of success makes the capture work.  The real problem with Bush and the Republicans isn't that they have failed so far, it's that their failures are the result of not caring enough about the things that really matter.  And I think that message has been slowly growing in the minds of regular folks since the day Bush announced "Mission Accomplished" and his overnight thanksgiving trip to Baghdad where regular soldiers weren't allowed to eat till he was gone.

I think these are really good points. say we do some day catch or kill bin Laden. Does that validate everything Republicans have and haven't done in GWOT? Of course not, but they'll spin it that way, and they'll use it to beat on critics who've harped on this point. We shouldn't put too much stock in the capture of single actors. The main point is that Republican policies have aggravated Middle East politics and alienated many moderates, which has long-term consequences.

Maybe the urge to focus on our failure to capture bin Laden is that it's an easy message to understand and push through the media. But we need to focus more on pithy summaries of the bigger problem, i.e., that there's more violence today, more terrorists today, than there were 5 years ago, and the US has less power than it did 5 years ago because of Bush's squandering of good will towards the US. This will remain true regardless of whether we've got bin Laden.

We're less safe than we were 5 years ago. Period.

if americans got any of their news from sources outside the u.s. they would see how badly the policies are failing in iraq, afghanistan, korea, and elsewhere... but the u.s. press whitewashes it all

http://www.miserywatch.com/2006/10/lates t_on_rices.html

If people knew who bad it all really was in afghanistan, iraq, korea, and elsewhere, the GOp could never get away with what it does...it's much worse than u.s. news reports...  news from iraq, afghanistan and korea from int'l sources

http://www.miserywatch.com/2006/10/lates t_on_rices.html