You've got to love it when someone takes the position that the media should air an ad that is misleading. But following the release of a report by the Annendberg Center, two leftist groups are demanding that Houston television stations air the ad in question.

A nonpartisan organization that reviews political ads for accuracy said Friday that a controversial commercial rejected by Houston TV stations after being labeled false by Rep. Tom DeLay's campaign is vaguely worded but contains nothing definitively false.

"We find that DeLay's lawyer mischaracterized what the ad said, and that the ad contains nothing that is strictly false," said Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. "The worst we can say of the ad is that its ambiguous wording" could mislead viewers about the details of DeLay's interactions with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges and is cooperating with a federal investigation of lawmakers and their aides.

The review came after a lawyer for DeLay's re-election campaign, Don McGahn, this week contacted four Houston television stations that had sold airtime for the ad. McGahn called the spot "reckless, malicious and false" and hinted that the stations could face legal trouble if they ran it. They didn't.

so what do the involved groups say?

With Factcheck.org's analysis in hand, the sponsoring groups are now encouraging Houston residents to contact the stations — KTRK (Channel 13), KRIV (Channel 26), KHOU (Channel 11) and KPRC (Channel 2) — and demand that they air the ad, which has appeared on cable stations in Houston and on the Internet.

The spot "contains important information about what Tom DeLay does in Washington and we think people in Houston need to know," said David Donnelly, national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund. The stations either did not return calls seeking comment or, when reached, declined to speak about the ad on Friday.

As a Texan who lives in the targetted district, I demand that KTRK (Channel 13), KRIV (Channel 26), KHOU (Channel 11) and KPRC (Channel 2) NOT run the ad. Given the finding that the ad is misleading -- and the acceptance of that determination by the PCAF -- it is your moral obligation not to become a party to the fraud the group is attempting to commit upon the people of CD22 and the rest of the Houston area.

Posted by: Greg at 03:59 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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