Weekly Shredder 7:
MoveOn fundraising letter
by J. Daniel Janzen

If you've ever signed a petition for a left-wing cause, you probably get a lot of e-mail from MoveOn — quick-turn fundraising appeals, event ticket offers, organizing pushes and still more petitions. Recently, you may have received one accusing the Republican Party of "fielding candidates who have some pretty outrageous and radical views." The e-mail goes on to cite "Republican congressional candidate and eugenics supporter James Hart," who is running on an unabashed white supremacy platform.

MoveOn invokes Hart to rally support for five specially targeted senatorial campaigns. It's an effective strategy. Running in Tennessee of all places, Hart's atavistic views on human biology recall William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Trial, and his extremism echoes Judge Roy Moore and his traveling Ten Commandments show. The five GOP opponents cited are all highly deserving of opposition, representing the furthest reaches of fundamentalism and intolerance. The only problem with MoveOn's e-mail is that it isn't true — neither in word nor in spirit.

For archives, audio, and background about the column, click here.

James Hart is indeed standing as the Republican candidate for the 8th Congressional District in the state of Tennessee, but he's doing so without the support of the national party. In fact, far from "fielding" Hart, the GOP did everything it could to oppose him, ultimately entering in the primary a national guardsman who'd served in Iraq. In any event, Hart doesn't represent much of a threat to the republic. John Tanner, the Democrat he's running against, has had the job for 16 years, winning 70 percent of the vote in 2002. "We can't afford to let people like James Hart run our country," says MoveOn. Certainly not — but that's not really the issue, is it?

There's no question that this is a critical election for both parties. As unprecedented amounts of money (more than $1 billion to date) pour into an exceptionally protracted presidential election, the rhetoric is running high on both sides. For Democrats, the consequences of a second Bush administration are almost to horrifying to contemplate; for many Republicans, nothing less than God Himself is on the line. At times, the electoral battlefield is no less ugly and degrading than anything we've seen in Iraq.

Some veterans, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth among them, criticize Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for speaking out against the actions of American servicemen in Vietnam after he's returned home. Even Kerry concedes that his talk of atrocities was overheated and based on hearsay, though the Toledo Blade's reporting on the Tiger Force massacres suggests that he wasn't far from the mark.

As the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and their repercussions make clear, America's moral authority in the world is only as solid as its willingness to live up to its stated ideals. If we allow ourselves to become corrupt in the heat of battle, we've already lost.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have for the moment ceded the moral high ground to Kerry. President Bush's unwillingness to distinguish between third-party ads that are unkind and those that are outright false, compounded by his refusal to accept the personal delivery of a letter on the subject from triple amputee and previous smear victim Max Cleland, reveal a fundamental lack of decency as well as unseemly desperation in the GOP campaign. For some swing voters, it might be enough to tip the scales in the opposite direction.

To date, MoveOn has largely avoided the low road, finding plenty to work with in Iraq and the economy. Its ads, while aggressive, have stayed within reasonable bounds of accuracy, and have avoided scurrilous and vile smears (remember, they decided against running that one comparing Bush with Adolph Hitler). No one contests that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney used every means at their disposal to avoid service in Vietnam; it's not a pretty accusation, but it's not a lie. But MoveOn's James Hart e-mail is a cheap shot.

It's exactly the kind of thing Democrats accuse the GOP of, and it gives credence to Bush's assertion that all PACs and 527 groups are equally mendacious.

E-mail J. Daniel Janzen at dan at clownyard dot com.