Repubs: Scared Paranoid

This will have one of two effects. It'll test the lapdoggedness of the media and they'll bow to this faux cease-and-desist order. Or they'll finally be pushed over the edge and give the RNC the collective finger. Gut check time...

RNC tells TV stations not to run anti-Bush ads
GOP committee says MoveOn.org's spots are illegally financed

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican National Committee is warning television stations across the country not to run ads from the MoveOn.org Voter Fund that criticize President Bush, charging that the left-leaning political group is paying for them with money raised in violation of the new campaign-finance law.

"As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity," said the RNC's chief counsel, Jill Holtzman Vogel, in a letter sent to about 250 stations Friday.

"Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station's broadcast rotation."

But MoveOn.org's lawyer, Joseph Sandler, said in a statement that the ads were funded legally, calling the RNC's letter "a complete misrepresentation of the law."

"The federal campaign laws have permitted precisely this use of money for advertising for the past 25 years," he said.

The RNC charges that because the ads are designed to help defeat President Bush, the group cannot pay for them with unlimited "soft money" contributions but only with contributions raised in amounts less than $5,000.

Although MoveOn.org is a so-called "Section 527" organization that is legally allowed to raise soft money in unlimited amounts from donors, the new campaign-finance law prohibits the group from using those funds to pay for ads that directly attack Bush, Vogel said.

And in a bit of political one-upmanship, the letter quotes the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry, as saying that the objective of the new law "is to eliminate altogether the capacity of soft money to play the role that it does in our politics."

I can bring up the notion that visiting the groundbreaking a 9-11 memorial, then walking 40 steps to a million-dollar fundraiser for your campaign is an affront to the tenets of humanity, but I've already piledriven that point home.

Here's what you need to fight this bullcrap: Contact Info For The TV Networks

Thanks, Kevin