Charlie Jarvis, CEO of the Republican Astroturf so-called seniors organization called USA NEXT has had to admit that they stole the picture of the two gay men kissing that they used in the attack ad against AARP.
USA NEXT is a long-time direct mail fund soliciting organization originally established by the Republican Richard Viguerie. When AARP started its advertising campaign against Bush's Social Security phase out plan, Jarvis hired the same advertising firm used by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to slime Kerry. Acting in character, the advertising firm immediately placed an advertisement on the American Spectator website associating AARP with a fictitious anti-military pro-gay-marriage viewpoint.
The two men shown kissing as they were married last March complained that the picture in the ad was used without their permission.
The Washington Post yesterday had the following response from Charlie Jarvis:
Buzz off, responds Charlie Jarvis, the group's CEO. "They ought to be suing all the left-wing blogs for circulating this [ad]. That's who they ought to be asking for an apology," he told us.
USA Next claims it purchased the photo from the Portland Tribune, which photographed the men at a public ceremony. But the newspaper told us yesterday it has no record of selling the photo to anyone.
Jarvis, a former Interior Department official in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, calls the men's protest "silly" and "a diversionary tactic." The real issue, he says, is AARP's "liberal" agenda, citing its opposition to President Bush's push for private Social Security accounts. "We are a conservative, free-market alternative to the AARP," Jarvis says, adding that the point was to expose "their character as the largest liberal lobbying organization on Earth."
Today the Portland Tribune, which owns the picture said the following:
"USA Next, The American Spectator and Mark Montini International, the company that produced the ad, did not have authorization from the Portland Tribune to use the copyrighted photo in any capacity, including journalistic or commercial purposes. The paper did not give, sell or contribute its use in any way, and no request for its use was received before the photo appeared in the ad, said Tim Jewett, Portland Tribune photo director."
For once the right-wing slime machine is getting the response it deserves to its nasty activities. It couldn't happen to better people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Addendum [Mar 05, 2004 - 7:59 AM]
Editor & Publisher has an excellent overview of the whole story with excuses and explanations from the right-wing slimesters all in place.
Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next who ordered the slimy attack ad in the first place, didn't know the photograph was stolen.
Representatives of the online conservative magazine The American Spectator which ran the ad were claim that they were similarly unaware that the photo was stolen.
Mark Montini, principle of the company Mark Montini internationally that produced the ad for USA Next told Editor & Publisher "Unfortunately, it appears that the image was used in the ad without having been subjected to the final approval process that we use for the hundreds of other online and print ads we produce every year."
Yeah, right. Somehow this ad, of all the hundreds of ads they produce every year, somehow failed to be "properly" approved.
Crap. He is making excuses. He got caught is all it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment