http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6620180/site/newsweek/
Going Negative
The Iraq elections will be delayed to give the country time to develop
one aspect of true democracy—nasty political ads
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek
Updated: 6:43 p.m. ET Nov. 30, 2004
Nov. 30 - The Iraqi elections, originally set for January 2005, have
been delayed six months to give the Iraqi people enough time to
produce and air negative political ads, the White House announced
today.
"The purpose of these elections is to foster democracy in Iraq, but
without negative ads, there is no democracy," said White House
spokesman Scott McClellan.
The decision to delay the Iraqi vote was the brainchild of White House
political strategist Karl Rove, who said he was "dismayed" by the
state of Iraq's negative advertising infrastructure.
"Their understanding of how to use distortions, unflattering
photographs and scary-sounding announcers is rudimentary at best,"
Rove said. "If the elections were to go forward without professionally
produced attack ads, the whole process would be seen as a sham."
In order to teach the Iraqi people how to make corrosive,
below-the-belt television spots, Rove has ordered the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth, a group whose ads proved particularly effective
during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, to parachute into Baghdad
at once.
Davis Hartnett, a spokesman for the veterans group, said that they
were already helping Iraqi citizens produce a series of negative ads
attacking the Vietnam record of one potential presidential candidate,
the Shiite politician Hassan Yousif.
Reached at his campaign headquarters in Mosul, Yousif angrily called
the ads "the work of madmen," telling reporters, "I did not even serve
in Vietnam."
"Our point exactly," Hartnett said.
Elsewhere, in a major policy shift, the government of Pakistan said it
would no longer pretend to be looking for Osama bin Laden.
Andy Borowitz is the author of The Borowitz Report, and the winner of
the National Press Club's humor award. For more, go to
borowitzreport.com.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
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Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
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