The B.S. Campaign Began Last Night

That stands for "Bush is Steady" in case you were wondering - his campaign slogan for the next eight months - but you can read in any double or triple meaning you like. Up to their ears in Democrats for six months, Mr. Rove could probably be heard screaming for joy down the halls of the White House. Finally, his man could get back in the news, or at least deflect the bad news and the daily attacks on his presidency - that's right, it's as much Rove's presidency, as it is Cheney's, as it is Wolfowitz's, as it is Perle's - and the real nastiness begins now from them. $200 million dollars buys a lot of ads, even these days. Mr. Bush will now try to put all the focus on Kerry's "weak voting record." How magnanimous and phony of you to call John Kerry, Mr. Bush. Get over it - the moment was his, not yours - and if the American people are smart, all the ad money in the world won't matter.

One problem, Mr. President - we are not taking the focus off of you for a minute for the next eight months. We are going to recount every piece of B.U. ("Bush the Unsteady") just so no one forgets exactly who you are and what you have done to cripple our democracy's values - while you are spending all that ad money. Veterans don't like what you have done, and we are going to keep saying so. And by the way, unlike you, we have some solutions - the first one being to put YOU in the unemployment line.

For readers: Be somewhere where you can be ready to be violently ill as you read the following.

President Bush's re-election team unveiled his first campaign advertisements on Wednesday and they in part use the events of Sept. 11, 2001, to focus on his "steady leadership" during turbulent times.

"Steady." Is that as good as $200 million can do? That means about the same as "Consistent" and with that we would agree, as in consistently outrageous, consistently noncomapassionate, and consistently arrogant - sending our kids off to die and be wounded, for what? Your mission to save the world? To save your corporate donors? To keep the family honor? It's all misguided - every bit of it, and your money is going to have a tough time counteracting your B.S.

The Bush-Cheney '04 campaign waited to launch the ad campaign until after the Democrats chose their presumptive nominee, John Kerry, who locked it up with impressive victories across the country on Tuesday.

Campaign officials said they saw Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, as a formidable opponent and predicted Bush will be at most tied or behind in the polls until the Republican nominating convention in New York in September. Recent polls have put Bush behind his Democratic opponent.

"We're obviously starting this race in a place where we thought we would, which is even or slightly behind, and I think that's going to stay that way for the next five or six months," said Bush's campaign pollster, Matthew Dowd.

The four Bush ads, one of them in Spanish, will begin running on Thursday in at least 16 important battleground states and on more than five national cable television channels.

Two ads refer to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, as the Bush campaign seeks to present Bush as a tried and tested leader who has risen to the challenge. One ad, entitled "Tested," shows, among other images, a damaged building from the World Trade Center ruins behind an American flag.

"The last few years have tested America in many ways," the voice-over says. "Some challenges we've seen before. And some were like no others. But America rose to the challenge."

An ad called "Safer, Stronger," points to the problems the United States has faced since Bush took office in January 2001, a recession, a declining stock market, a dot.com boom gone bust and "a day of tragedy."

"Today, America is turning the corner. Rising to the challenge," the ad says. This one is also done in Spanish.

ONE AD FOCUSES ON ECONOMY

What economy - the one that you saddled with a $700 billion deficit next year, the same one with no real job growth since your economic turn-around began with the tax cuts?

A 60-second ad entitled "Lead" focuses on what may well be Bush's greatest weakness, the inability of the U.S. economy to generate a lot of jobs despite strong growth.

"And as the economy grows, the job base grows and somebody who's looking for work will be more likely to find a job," Bush says in the ad.

Seated next to him is his wife Laura, who the Bush campaign sees as an enormous asset. She lauds her husband for "the strength, the focus, the characteristics that these times demand."

The ads constitute a multimillion-dollar purchase as the Bush campaign begins to dip into the more than $100 million in cash on hand. The ads are positive looks at the president's record with no attacks on Kerry.

Dowd said a large section of the electorate will see the ads but would not say which states they will be in to avoid tipping off the Bush strategy to the Democrats.

Don't worry - you won't be able to hide, until after November.