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Bush ad doctored image showing more soldiers { October 29 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics/campaign/29troops.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/politics/campaign/29troops.html
October 29, 2004
ADVERTISING
Bush Campaign Replaces Ad That Had Doctored Images
By JIM RUTENBERG
MIAMI, Oct. 28 - President Bush's campaign said Thursday that it was replacing one of its closing advertisements after acknowledging that it included an image that had been doctored to increase the number of soldiers appearing to listen to Mr. Bush.
The abrupt move came after a liberal Web log, DailyKos, featured a posting showing that the same faces appear several times in several different places within the same crowd shot. Democrats pounced on the issue, saying that the advertisement underscored their contention that the Bush administration had repeatedly deceived the American people.
Bush campaign aides said they were unaware that the editors who worked on the advertisement had used a computer program to expand the size of the crowd after being asked to crop the shot for artistic reasons.
"The important thing in this is there was no intent to mislead people about the size of the audience," said Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's chief media adviser. "They were real soldiers, they were really there, there was no editorial intent here."
He said that the advertisement was being retooled and that the new version, without the doctored portion, would be sent immediately to the cable networks planning to run the spot.
Joe Lockhart, a spokesman for Senator John Kerry, said in a statement, "If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else."
Soldiers have become increasingly potent symbols in the final days of an election in which the war in Iraq has become a central issue.
On Wednesday, after Mr. Kerry had aggressively criticized Mr. Bush for days over a report that 380 tons of powerful explosives disappeared from an Iraqi military complex after the American-led invasion, Mr. Bush accused him of "denigrating the actions" of the troops.
Responding on Wednesday in Kendall, a suburb here, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Mr. Kerry's running mate, said, "Aren't we sick and tired of George Bush and Dick Cheney using our troops as shields to protect their own jobs?"
In a new Kerry advertisement that was released Wednesday, an announcer says, "As we see the deepening crisis and chaos in Iraq, as we choose a new commander in chief and a fresh start, we will always support and honor those who serve."
Mr. Bush's campaign took the Kerry campaign's finger-pointing over the doctored advertisement to reprise one of its longtime attacks on Mr. Kerry for his vote against the $87 billion appropriation for military and rebuilding operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Noting that the soldiers who appear in the advertisement had been assembled to hear Mr. Bush speak at Fort Drum, N.Y., in July, Steve Schmidt, a Bush campaign spokesman, said, "These are the soldiers John Kerry voted against when he voted against their body armor, their combat pay and their health care benefits."
The shot was included in a spot that Mr. Bush's campaign had presented as a crucial part of its closing argument to voters. Most of the spot shows a segment of Mr. Bush's nominating acceptance speech in which he praises the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.
"I've met with the parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag," he says. "Because of your service and sacrifice, we are defeating the terrorists where they live and plan and you're making America safer."
The actual photograph used in the commercial showed Mr. Bush speaking from a lectern with the soldiers behind him. But Mr. McKinnon said the editors were asked to crop Mr. Bush to focus on the soldiers.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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