Presto! From the new Bush-Cheney '04 campaign ad "Whatever It Takes." Indeed, that devoted mantra apparently includes trafficking in doctored photos of, well, one U.S. soldier(s) who backs the president big time.
On CNN today, BC'04 copped to the Photoshopping of the troops in its new ad and blamed the blunder -- of course -- on some clueless underling. (According to CNN, the Bush camp says it was the handiwork of a renegade editor at the firm to which the ad job was outsourced. But didn't they already fire that guy for going off on his own to tack up the "Mission Accomplished" banner?)
Of course, BC'04 means to say they will do "whatever it takes" to win the war against terrorism. Unfortunately, there is already an entire stockpile of reasons to believe that, too, includes the kind of stupidity and desperation that seems to be plaguing the Bush campaign in its final days.
UPDATE: Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart has issued a statement demanding that BC'04 pull the ad:
"Now we know why this ad is named 'Whatever it Takes.' This administration has always had a problem telling the truth, from Iraq to jobs to health care. The Bush campaign's advertising has been consistently dishonest in what they say. But today, it's been exposed for being dishonest about what we see.
"If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else. This doctored commercial is fundamentally dishonest and insults the intelligence of the American people. The Bush campaign has no choice but to take this ad down immediately and issue an apology for its latest attempt to mislead the American people. Unless George Bush has changed his position on human cloning, it's got to pull this fundamentally dishonest ad immediately."
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