In 2000, when Bush’s cronies from Texas set up a 527 to slander and help defeat John McCain, Bush thought they were just dandy…
[ CBS Face the Nation anchor Bob] SCHIEFFER: Well--but the fact is that you have launched these ads and that your friends have spent $ 2 1/2 million now…
Gov. BUSH: Well, these are--these are…
SCHIEFFER: ...on a, on an ad that you say you know nothing about, attacking his environmental record. I mean, isn’t that just exactly what Senator McCain says has gone haywire in America? Where somebody can come in, spend all this money, no one would have known who spent this money up there, attacking his environmental record if the reporters hadn’t rooted it out? And yet he--these friends may wind up spending more in New York than you and Senator McCain are spending up there.
Gov. BUSH: Bob, there are people spending ads that say nice things about me. There are people spending money on ads that say ugly things about me.
BORGER: Should…
Gov. BUSH: That’s part of the American--let me finish. That’s part of the American process. There have been ads, independent expenditures, that are saying bad things about me. I don’t particularly care when they do, but that’s what freedom of speech is all about. And this allegation somehow that I’m involved with this is just totally ridiculous. It is uncalled for. There is no--no truth whatsoever. This--the notion that this man who ran the ads spent the night in the governor’s mansion--I think Senator McCain just made that allegation--they’re--they’re just not true.
BORGER: Well, Governor…
Gov. BUSH: It is--yeah?
BORGER: ...do you think you should stop these ads?
Gov. BUSH: You know, let me--let me say something to you. People have the right to run ads.They have the right to do what they want to do, under the--under the First Amendment in America.
[Source: CBS Face the Nation, 3/5/00]
and now:
Friday, August 27, 2004 LAS CRUCES, N.M., -- President Bush's reelection campaign plans to join forces with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to take legal action to force the Federal Election Commission to crack down on political organizations that exploit a loophole in campaign-finance law to spend unregulated funds, the White House announced Thursday morning.
McCain had tried to block the so-called 527 groups with a complaint to the FEC, but because that body did not act on the complaint in 120 days, opponents of the 527s can now go to the courts.
"The president said he wanted to work together [with McCain] to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by these shadowy 527 groups," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One after Bush spoke to McCain by telephone from the presidential jet Thursday morning.
Let's face it: the "My Pet Goat While the Twin Towers Burn" ad is on everyone's mind!
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