Willie Horton & Rev. Al New batch of anti-Dem ads try to exploit old wound

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/229190p-196751c.html

It's Willie Horton - the sequel.

A new conservative group is getting ready to air a pair of blistering attack ads against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, including one that revives the infamous figure of Horton and blasts Kerry for helping free a "would-be cop killer" from prison.

Another slams him for ties to the Rev. Al Sharpton.

<snip>

And in the other ad.

In the new ad, a narrator says that in 1982, Kerry, as a private attorney, "successfully overturned the conviction of his client George Reissfelder," who had escaped in '74 while on furlough - "just like Willie Horton."

[RamboLiberal]

1. More info from Daily News article and some info on the case

MoveOnForAmerica is led by GOP political consultant Stephen Marks. He says he has raised $200,000 under the 527 soft money loophole and plans to play the ads in battleground states until Election Day.

But so far, they can be found only on the Internet, raising suspicions Marks is seeking buzz while shopping around for a big-bucks donor. But he wouldn't need much money. The Horton ad aired once.

And on the case in the commercial - Kerry better be ready to get out in front of these two attacks, cause you know Faux and CNN will do the Repugs dirty work for them by showing the ads over and over for free.

<snip>

In 1974, Reissfelder won a one-day furlough from prison, and he fled the state. He was on the lam for three years until he was caught passing a bad check in Florida; when he was arrested, he tried to pull a gun on the police. He was returned to prison in Massachusetts, and resumed serving his life sentence. But his story caught the interest of a fellow-inmate who dabbled as a jailhouse lawyer, and in 1980 the inmate wrote a brief that persuaded a judge to assign a lawyer to represent Reissfelder. The judge chose Roanne Sragow.

Sragow visited Reissfelder in prison and told him that, given the uncertainties in the case and the fact that he had already served about ten years, she might be able to get him released on a plea bargain. But Reissfelder insisted that he was innocent and said that he wouldn’t plead guilty to anything. Sragow started digging into the case. Learning of her involvement, John Zamparelli, the lawyer who represented Silky Sullivan at trial, appeared at her office one day and said, “As God is my witness, the cops knew it, the prosecutor knew it, the judge knew it—this guy Reissfelder was not guilty.” As Zamparelli told me, “George had a record, and the cops were dying to get the case closed. The sad part was, the cops even knew who the guilty party was. And he’s still at large today.”

“Roanne was the court-appointed attorney, and I was the helper,” Kerry said. “She did the lion’s share of the work, but that case taught me a lot.” Several mornings, around dawn, Sragow and Kerry prowled the loading docks in South Boston, looking for an alibi witness, a man who had refused to testify for the defense at the first trial because he was wanted by loan sharks. They eventually found him, but the turning point in the case came when they learned that Silky Sullivan, who had died of leukemia in prison in 1972, had sought out a priest for a deathbed confession.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact1

[Judi Lynn]

2. They're really stretching

but the chaotic or just plain simple minds of some of the rightwingnuts who will attempt to understand the adds might not be able to keep up well enough to understand how they are really, really desperate to wring any story out of the second ad, at all.

This sounds like desperation, for sure! He'll be able to get a good response to this one, wouldn't you think?

From the article:

When Reissfelder was captured three years later, he tried to grab a cop's gun. The ad says he tried to shoot a police officer and pleaded guilty to that, but didn't serve his 15-year sentence.

His sentence, however, had nothing to do with the case that Kerry worked on with his law partner, Roanne Sragow, who was the lead attorney.

Sragow had been assigned by a judge to look into Reissfeld's '67 murder conviction - which turned out to be wrongful.

The ad admits he was cleared but calls him a "would-be cop killer," and points out Kerry was Dukakis' lieutenant governor.
(snip)

Whoooo! Dukakis' lietenant governor! Poor, sick bastards.

On edit:

I forgot to mention the first "nice try" ad seems like nothing more or less than calling Kerry a "Sharpton Lover" and it's a damned shame if someone doesn't call them on it.

Trying to get some foaming-at-the-mouth level racist reaction from the sickest in our country who flip out at the very mention of Al Sharpton's name. That's simply stupid.

[daddybear]

3. Repubs flip flop

Yes, those ads will be crapola but they will effect some folks... as Kerry says, Bush cannot talk about the issues for REAL because he has been such a loser.
It is still true and they cannot overcome the fact that BUSH LIED AND THOUSANDS DIED... for his lust for oil and political power.

[Catfight]

4. Time to show Bush making fun of the WMD's. Time to show Bush

saying the war is not winnable and then the next day saying it is. Time to show the repug kicking that lady at the RNC. Time to show oil profits at an all time high, time to show pictures of our soldiers without limbs and Bush not attending funerals. Time to go on offense. He's just trying to distract everyone from the 18% Increase in Medical Premiums and the unemployment increasing. Keep the message on track, don't waste too much time with this stuff.

Also, show Cheney just two days ago talking about how the repugs don't talk about the past, and then stamp over his big ugly white rich face: BUSH/CHENEY, BRINGING HYPOCRISY TO EVERY DOOR OF AMERICA.

There's the George Bush who says one thing and does another. This is getting too easy with every commercial they run.

[H2O Man]

5. Pathetic

and desperate. Makes you realize the republicans aren't confident at all, now are they?

[Junkdrawer]

6. These ads are designed to pressure Kerry to renounce ALL 527s...

If he actually airs any of them, Rove better have a MUCH better firewall built than he did with the SBVFT.

[LauraK]

7. The arrogant little Republican boys

who strutted around New York this week, claiming that they have this one won, would do well to take a step back. It could be a long and ugly road to November.

Will it be the three, or is it four or five, drunken driving arrests that Bush and Cheney, the two most powerful men in the world, managed to rack up?

After Vietnam, nothing is ancient history, and Cheney is still drinking. What their records suggest is not only a serious problem with alcoholism, which Bush but not Cheney has acknowledged, but also an even more serious problem of judgment.

What if Bush were to fall off the wagon? Then what? Has America really faced the fact that we have an alcoholic as our president?

Or how about Dead Texans for Truth, highlighting those who served in Vietnam instead of the privileged draft-dodging president, and ended up as names on the wall instead of members of the Air National Guard.

Or maybe it will be Texas National Guardsmen for Truth, who can explain exactly what George W. Bush was doing while John Kerry was putting his life on the line. Perhaps with money on the table, or investigators on their trail, we will learn just what kind of wild and crazy things the president was doing while Kerry was saving a man's life, facing enemy fire and serving his country.

Or could it be George Bush's Former Female Friends for Truth. A forthcoming book by Kitty Kelley raises questions about whether the president has practiced what he preaches on abortion. As Larry Flynt discovered, a million dollars loosens lips. Are there others to be loosened?

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/opinion/9580059.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Not afraid to play...

The anti-personal rights and right to justice, and the race card, are they?

Fucking vermin.

[tuvor]

9. Some clues?

I don't know, let's see what we can dig up.

According to http://whois.net/whois.cgi2?d=MoveOnForAmerica.org">whois.net, the person who registered moveonFORamerica.org (disingenuous bastards) is one "Stephen Marks".

A certain Steve Marks is the name of the senior vice president for business and legal affairs with the RIAA according to http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/040202/index.asp (Picture included)

Same person? I don't know. In the meantime I'll try to keep hunting, although I'm hosting a barbecue in a few hours.

UPDATE: According to http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/barrett.php, someone named Stephen Marks was a staffer for Pat Buchanan who wrote an apparently questionable article for Penthouse Magazine about "campaign finance improprieties" in 1996.(http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9944/vest.php)

UPDATE: (This is interesting!)

Dueling Ads Criticize Bush, Gore on Racial Matters
By Christine Hall
CNS Staff Writer
October 25, 2000

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200010\POL20001025h.html

The Americans Against Hate ad, which is running at the same time as the NAACP ad, attacks Gore for his past dealings with Sharpton. The ad shows footage of Gore defending a private meeting he had with Sharpton in February, and urging his audience to "not be so quick to completely dismiss what has to say."

American Against Hate alleges that Sharpton, among other things, once praised Adolph Hitler as "a great man." The ad also shows video footage of Sharpton urging college students to kill police officers.

"We're trying to get these ads out between now and the election to spread the word that the hate in this country is not on the right but on the left," said Stephen Marks, a spokesman for the group. According to Marks, the group is mainly funded by a few big dollar contributors from Tennessee.

[GimmeDANEger]

14. he isn't the RIAA guy

go to this thread to learn some dirt on him http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x749729

[tuvor]

16. Thanks!

[depakid]

10. Going after a prosecutor for being soft on crime....

the sad thing is, it'll probably do some damage in certain states.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

11. We need to drop the gloves and start hitting them in the same fashion

or risk loosing the election.

Pound him about Kenny Boy, His AND Cheney's DUI's, Halliburton, The New Allison Visualisation of him pissing on cars ( http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/02/allison/index_np.html ), his mocking of the "born again" death row inmate pleading for a stay, Prescott Bush's ties to the Nazis and how his assetts were frozen because of it...

There's plenty of ammo out there. We just need to start using it.

[despairing optimist]

20. Don't forget Zell Miller and his keynote address

The Dems should play sound bites from his speech side by side with bites from Sharpton's, and I'm betting with Michael Moore on this one: most voters would identify with Sharpton more than with Miller.

The other side keeps playing the race/liberal card, and it's very old, not getting old but it's already very old. Just show them up for the creeps they are.

[mbee]

12. The Kerry campaign people should bring up every single Republican

who is responsible for someone's death including Laura Bush. You better believe the Republicans will do anything to win and Kerry had better be willing to do the same!

[Citizen Daryl]

13. Wow, it's the summer of (warmed-over) hate.

If this is what America wants, I hope it gets everything it deserves.

[Ducks In A Row]

15. imagine Al Sharpton traveling to their front door...

camera crew in town, demanding an apology.
the freepers creeps will back down in tears.

[Zen Democrat]

17. Another thing about the Reissfelder case ... The DA let him go.

After the judge ruled for a new trial, the DA decided not to retry the case and Reissfelder was freed. So, John Kerry assisted his law partner in securing a new trial for an innocent man. Hardly Willie Horton.

I doubt that ad will make it off the internet. But you can be sure that the right-wing will undertake a big internet email campaign to disseminate these lies and innuendo.

[RamboLiberal]

19. May not make off internet - but bet Faux, CNN and MSNBC

will air it for free! That's how the damn SBL's got so much publicity. Plus throw in Limpballs, Shannity and O' Really.

[Democat]

18. MoveOn had better file a lawsuit to stop them from using their name!

If these ads launch and the left doesn't file a lawsuit to stop this fake group from using the MoveOn trademark, we should immediatly start running ads from the "National Rifle Association for America" that slam Bush.

MoveOn cannot allow this group to confuse donors and voters. How many well meaning moderates who don't pay much attention are going to think this is the real MoveOn when they see the ads? A lot!

You cannot use someone else's brand name to raise money for your cause like this - it's fraud and obvious trademark violation.

They can run the ads, but they cannot use someone else's name on the ads! MoveOn must sue right away!

[hatrack]

21. What can one say but . . . FEEBLE!

Why don't they just say "who was black, just like Willie Horton" and be done with it?

I don't know how this "reporter" judges "blistering" attack ads, but these ain't it.

[are_we_united_yet]

22. So glad the Repubs can run on their record

and don't have to resort to bullshit ads......

Oh wait.....I guess they can't run on their record...never mind.