Yeah, real great ad, funny how the "contributions" made for the purpose of supposedly "spreading Ashley's story" are going to fund a series of attack ads on Kerry. I do not applaud the use of a national and personal tragedy by partisan hacks two weeks before a presidential election to pull on people's heart strings and shake them down for donations. Do you have no shame?

Best ad of this campaign?
One of the best ever,IMHO.
Click on the link above the video
and send copies to your non Blogging friends....

Get your facts straight, Tom. Donations to the foundation formed to honor Ashley's dead mom are not funding the making or broadcast of the ad. Money being raised by the Progress for America Voter Fund, a "527" committeee. The mom's foundation is the Wendy Faulkner Memorial Children's Foundation.

Donations in the mom's memory are funding the foundation, donations to the Progress for America Voter Fund would help fund broadcasting the ad.

The PFA Voter Fund website is here

The Wendy Faulkner Memorial Foundation website is here.

Bill, what I said is completely accurate. On the "Ashley's Story" website, there is a link "Spread Ashley's Story with your Donation." That link goes to the PFA Voter Fund which is funding a series of anti-Kerry ads, not to "spread Ashley's story." Please do not try to change what I wrote earlier and your attempt at a Clintonian distinction in where the funding is going was really quite sad.

Um, okay. How is that not spreading Ashley's story? You can "help spread Ashley's story" by emailing the site or the ad to friends, or by donating to PFA to help fund the broadcast of the ad.

Seems to me either way you are helping them "spread Ashley's story."

The PFA also happens to be putting out other ads, but they are fundraising to help fund the broadcasting of the Ashley ad. Seems fair and honest to me. If you feel duped, well, then don't donate.

What the link should read is: "If you think using the plight of a poor little girl who lost her mother on 9/11 to generate sympathetic donations for the purpose of funding cynical, conservative, partisan attack ads, then click here."

I hope the Kerry campaign attacks the ad the way you have, TomJ. They'll lose by 10 points.

The power of the ad is in its sincerity. The hug was not staged, it was a chance event on a campaign rope line, and it impact the Faulkner family in a huge way.

As for what the Bush administration has done for the 9/11 families, he has:

1. Destroyed the regime the sponsored the attack.
2. Killed or captured most of the top leadership of the terrorist group that perpetrated the attack.
3. Continues to pursue terrorists and kill them.
4. Enacted legisation establishing a massive fund for 9/11 victims' families.
5. Beefed up homeland security including airport and airplane security.
6. Made preventing future attacks and defeating Islamist terrorism the centerpiece goal of his presidency.

Other than that, yeah, you're right. He hasn't done much.

Bill, you seem to be living in the same fantasy world as the president. No wonder conservatives are reduced to such pandering as the "Spread Ashely's Story" scam. With regard to your points:

Afghanistan:

"The overlooked war continues with no end in sight. Narcotics trafficking is at an all-time high. If U.S. forces were to leave, the Taliban -- or something like it -- would regain power. The U.S. is lost in Afghanistan, bound to this wild country and unable to leave...The situation in Afghanistan, as laid out to me, looks nothing like a country alleged to be progressing toward representative democracy under American tutelage." - Robert Novak, 5/31/04

Iraq:

White House officials “acknowledge that their post-Saddam plan for rebuilding Iraq has been substantially flawed on the security front. Some officials said privately that the plan for security after Baghdad's fall has been an utter failure.” - Washington Times, 8/28/03

“A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff blames setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process” in which “officials, conceded in recent weeks that the Bush administration failed to predict the guerrilla war against American troops in Iraq.” - Washington Times, 9/3/03

Strenghth of Al Queda:

"Al-Qaeda remains a viable and effective 'network of networks' and has been galvanized by the war in Iraq...the group is present in more than 60 countries and has '18,000 potential terrorists at large.'" - International Institute for Strategic Studies, 5/25/04

Continuing to fight terrorism:

Knight-Ridder reported that experts now say the "Iraq war is diverting resources from war on terror." Specifically, "a growing number of counter-terrorism experts are questioning whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq has hurt rather than helped the global battle against al Qaeda." Republican and Democratic experts "are increasingly suggesting that the Iraq war has diverted momentum, troops and intelligence resources from the worldwide campaign to destroy the remnants of al Qaeda." Similarly, the U.S. Army War College reported that the Iraq war "diverted attention and resources away from the security of the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al Qaeda." - Knight-Ridder, 11/26/03; BBC, 1/13/04

Homeland Security:

The annual cybersecurity report card is out, and "the Department of Homeland Security - the government's lead agency on matters of Internet security - led the list of seven federal agencies that earned an 'F' grade for their own network security efforts in 2003." And "also earning an 'F' was the Justice Department, the agency charged with investigating and prosecuting many cases involving hacking and other forms of cybercrime." - Washington Post, 12/9/03

I think you're wasting your time Bill. And I think the effectiveness of the ad can be measured in the reactions of lefties like Tom. Best ad of the campaign by far!

It's obvious it's a good ad, because it's got the left pissed off and spreading lies faster than usual. Keep trying there, Tom. Someone out there will believe you. Unfortunately, they're French and can't vote.

Do you know what is the really cool thing about this ad? Here is a link to the orginal story.....check the date =0 Unlike our friends on the left, this was not immediately seized upon for political gain, it's nearly 5 months old. Wonder why we never saw this one in the mainstream media? Must have been Bush's fault, LOL.

Great add! Tom, quit whining like a pussy-geez.

My vote for "best ad of the campaign":

http://www.winbackrespect.org/ads/ad5_wmp.html

I liked this and it was Ashley's decision to be with the President. If there is any shame it belongs to the person who thinks this was an attack on poor Old John Kerry. I sat in my room awaiting surgery to remove a diseased kidney in 2001. I was horrified at what happened. Do those that do not learn from history also not have to repeat history. The first attacks by planes was in Pearl Harbor. December 7 then came 911. Why do people persist in accusing the President of everything?