NBC Asks DNC To Pull 'Fortunate Son' Ad.

Likely Bedfellows
If it's good enough for 60 Minutes, it's good enough for the DNC.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/14/2004 3:30:00 PM

A NEW attack ad from the Democratic National Committee features footage lifted from the much-disputed 60 Minutes segment aired by CBS News last Wednesday and from an interview last February from NBC's Meet the Press. When the Bush-Cheney campaign in February used footage from an interview President Bush gave NBC's Meet the Press, the network immediately demanded that the campaign pull the ad.

"NBC News did not, and does not, authorize this misuse of our copyrighted material," the network said in its February 10 statement. "As a news interview program, 'Meet the Press' takes very seriously the unauthorized use of its content for partisan political purposes."

NBC lawyers are working on a formal letter asking the DNC to pull the ad. Will CBS do the same? CBS spokeswomen Sandy Genelius and Kelli Edwards did not return telephone and emailed requests for comment. (The smart move, of course, would be for CBS to follow NBC's lead and demand that the ad be pulled or, at least, that the 60 Minutes footage be edited out.)

It is not unusual or illegal for political campaigns to use television footage under the protection of the "fair use" doctrine. But the Bush campaign ad was rather bland compared to the new ad from the DNC. It was a positive ad in which President Bush defends his conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Says Bush:


America has a responsibility in this world to lead, a responsibility to lead in the war against terror, a responsibility to speak

clearly about the threats that we all face, a responsibility to promote freedom to free people from the clutches of barbaric people such as Saddam Hussein who tortured and mutilated. There were mass graves that we had found.

The DNC video, by contrast, is hard-hitting. While it does not use the disputed memos that have attracted so much attention over the past week, the ad accuses Bush of using family connections to avoid service in Vietnam. Viewers see footage of Ben Barnes, former speaker of the house and lieutenant governor of Texas, taken from the September 8, 2004, airing of 60 Minutes. (Barnes is also a fundraiser for John Kerry, something 60 Minutes noted in the original broadcast but does not appear in the DNC video.)


Barnes: And I recommended a lot of people for the National Guard during the Vietnam era--as Speaker of the House and as Lieutenant Governor.

Rather: And you recommended George W. Bush?

Barnes: Yes, I did.

Rather: When you said that you did this for others, what can only be called preferential treatment for President Bush. Would you describe it as that?

Barnes: Oh, I would describe it as preferential treatment.

With NBC asking the DNC to pull the ad, CBS will likely be left with little choice but to do the same. Will it be the first of several steps the network will take to restore its badly shaken credibility? We'll see.



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