WASHINGTON – The Democratic presidential candidates yesterday blasted the Republican Party’s first TV ad for President Bush, charging the president with playing politics with the war on terror.
The GOP ad, which airs in Iowa tomorrow, says, “Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists,” and shows clips from Bush’s State of the Union speech in which he chastises those who say America should wait until the threat is “imminent.”
“Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others,” the narrator in the ad says, in a clear reference to the Democratic candidates who have been hammered Bush for months on the war.
Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), a supporter of the resolution authorizing war against Iraq, fumed, “Once again, the president has chosen to politicize the war on terror for partisan gain.
“Democrats have supported the war on terror, and I have backed the president when he was right, but forcefully pointed out when he was wrong.”