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Stealth Campaigns – Part Two (cont.)

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Recently-departed Freedom’s Watch President Bradley A. Blakeman, a federal contractor, business lobbyist, and former top aide to President Bush, said his group — responding to the MoveOn.org attack on Petraeus — sprang into action even before it had an office or a staff. The group caused The New York Times to acknowledge that MoveOn.org had received a discount price for its full-page Petraeus/Betray Us advertisement. After that, in an interview with the Center for Public Integrity, Blakeman bragged that Freedom’s Watch had “taken down The New York Times and MoveOn.org” in one stroke. He said the leaders of MoveOn.org were caught “flatfooted” when his group came “over the hill like the cavalry with a real $15 million ad campaign [and] a coalition of real groups.” The group’s advertising will be done by Arthur Finkelstein, a reputed master of the political attack ad, but Blakeman insisted his group would never be as “mean spirited” as MoveOn.org.

MoveOn.org’s “General Petraeus or General Betray Us” Ad, 2007 (MoveOn.org Political Action)

Freedom’s Watch declined to disclose how much money it intended to raise and spend in the 2008 cycle or to release the names of all the top donors. But Blakeman made it clear that he expected to have access to “millions of dollars.” He emphasized, “I will tell you in 2008 we expect to play a major role in issues and defining those issues that are important in the presidential campaign and that cycle.” He said one of Freedom Watch’s central concerns will be “radical Islam and the emerging Iranian threat” but declined to identify all the issues on which the group had decided to take a position.  Freedom’s Watch has formed partnerships with many other like-minded organizations including Vets for Freedom, Rolling Thunder, and Families United. These alliances were much like MoveOn.org’s support of liberal groups led by military veterans such as VoteVets.org, and several labor unions, including Service Employees International Union.

The alliances have made Jon Soltz and Pete Hegseth very visible as frequent guests on cable television. They returned home after serving in the military in Iraq, but they have never stopped fighting. Now these two 20-somethings represent different sides of the argument over U.S. involvement in Iraq. Soltz heads VoteVets.org, an organization of military veterans that has described the war in Iraq as “a distraction” from the larger war on terror. Hegseth represented Vets for Freedom, a group of young veterans favoring the White House position and labeling itself “pro-mission.”

Iraq was the focus of many independent TV spots at the start of the 2008 election cycle. In almost every case, the ads featured real soldiers and military families. There would have been no way for viewers to know that the ads were paid for by rich donors who were unaffected by the hardships that soldiers and their families were experiencing.

Ads sponsored by Freedom’s Watch enlisted the parents of 2nd Lieutenant John Wroblewski, who was killed in Anbar Province of Iraq on April 7, 2004, to star in one of their first 30-second television spots. They noted their son’s last letter had said it was “very important to him to complete this mission.” Then Wroblewski’s father declared, “We implore the Congress to show the same courage that our son had.” Likewise, John Kriesel, a wounded vet who lost both legs in Fallujah on Dec. 2, 2006, stepped forward on his artificial legs in another Freedom’s Watch ad to proclaim: “It’s no time to quit. It’s no time for politics.”

In response, VoteVets.org aired an ad in which a veteran named Mike Breen told how he called for helicopters to bring his unit more ammunition during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2005. The helicopters never came. “Where were the helicopters?” he asked. The camera shifted to former General Wesley Clark, who says the helicopters Breen was waiting for were “stuck fighting George Bush’s war in Iraq.” In another VoteVets.org ad, Brian McGough, a wounded vet from Iraq, responded to a statement by conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh that veterans who criticize the war were “phony soldiers.” McGough declared that the trauma of his head injury was real, not phony. “Until you have the guts to call me a phony soldier to my face,” he said, “stop telling lies about my service.”