Ad AnalysisTrevor Parry-Giles,University of Maryland Bush/Cheney "Intel"
Senator John Kerry cites his membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee as a marker of his qualification for the presidency. In addition, one of the qualifications offered for Senator John Edwards as a running mate for Senator Kerry is his work on the Senate Intelligence Committee. As an issue, the state and quality of the U.S. intelligence community is front and center in the 2004 campaign—it is the subject of much of the 9/11 Commission's final report. as well as much discussion about the Iraq War as evidenced by the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on prewar intelligence. http://intelligence.senate.gov/ http://www.9-11commission.gov/ Kerry the Inconsistent Flip-Flopper The final line of the “Intel” ad reinforces a central message of the Bush/Cheney efforts to define John Kerry—that the Senator is an inconsistent flip-flopper, someone who will say or do anything to secure political success. The male narrator concludes, “There's what Kerry says and then there's what Kerry does.” While not exactly a policy or political flip-flop, the impression is the same. Senator Kerry is depicted in the commercial as inconsistent. This central message is reinforced by the visual imagery of “Intel.” The ad's initial image is of President George W. Bush, giving a speech with a cut to him greeting voters. Both images are active and full-screen. The rest of the ad features footage of Senator Kerry, on a faux television screen, at the Democratic convention. He appears like a conventional politician, and each time the ad mentions a shift in his position, or something negative about his record, the visual image of Senator Kerry shifts as well, from one direction to the opposite one. John Kerry – Missing In Action “Intel” uses Senator Kerry's words from the Democratic National Convention acceptance speech to frame the ad. Kerry is quoted as saying “I will immediately reform the intelligence system.” The narrator then says “Oh really.” Immediately, the ad suggests doubt and uncertainty about Senator Kerry's promise. The ad then offers its evidence, even as its visual evidence is inconsistent with the verbal evidence. Visually, the graphic states, “John Kerry...ABSENT 76% of public Senate Intelligence Committee Hearings.” The narrator says, “As a member of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Kerry was absent for 76 percent of the Committee's hearings.” The important modifier “public” is missing from the narrator's statement and it is generally understood that some Intelligence Committee meetings are private and records of attendance are sealed. The Kerry campaign also charges that the ad makes faulty conclusions based on “fuzzy math” and imprecise accounting of the Committee records, noting that only 65 of the 329 hearings, meetings, and markups of the Committee were open in the time that Kerry was on the Committee. Significantly, the Kerry campaign has not released or asked for the release of attendance records at private meetings. http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=241 http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/archives/002455.html#more A similar sleight of hand maneuver is evident in the second charged leveled at Senator Kerry in “Intel.” The narrator says “In the year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center , Kerry was absent for every single one,” while the graphic evidence reads “John Kerry...ABSENT every single public Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing.” Absent the context from the voiceover, the viewer is invited to conclude that Senator Kerry missed all meetings of the Intelligence Committee. In addition, the ad relies on historical and contextual memory of viewers when it obliquely refers to the “year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center .” While the ad is referring to the attacks of 1993, the viewer is not given that more concrete information, inviting confusion. Viewers might reasonably believe that in the year following 9/11/2001 , Senator Kerry missed all meetings of the Intelligence Committee (again—no distinction between public and private meetings) even though he was not a member of that Committee in the year following 9/11. Finally, “Intel” faults Senator Kerry for proposed cuts to the intelligence budgets in 1994. Widely reported is the fact that Senator Kerry was not alone in proposing such cuts. Notably, many Republican senators and President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, Porter Goss, similarly proposed dramatic cuts in intelligence funding following the end of the Cold War ( Washington Post , August 23, 2004 , p. A3). What Others Are Saying About the Ad Chad Clanton--Kerry Campaign Spokesman "Within weeks of saying he had too much good to say to be negative, George Bush has resumed his misleading negative campaign. He lacks a plan or a vision of where the nation needs to go, so he's resorted once again to the politics of fear and distortion. America can do better." http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/archives/002455.html
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