There Is No Depth To Which The GOP Slime Machine Will Not Sink

Andrew Barr for The Hill reports that ads for GOP candidate Brian Bilbray, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, suggested his Dem opponent endorsed child pornography. (This link is a little hinky, and sometimes returns code instead of the page in Firefox and Netscape. Safari and Explorer seem to work fine. A mystery to me.) via Paul Kiel and Justin Rood at TPM Muckraker transcript of the ad: “Busby even praised a teacher reported to have child porn, saying she was always willing to lend a hand. That’s dangerous. Liberal Francine Busby. Poor management. Poor judgment. Dangerous.” The NRCC attributed the premise of its ad to a statement Busby made to The San Diego Union-Tribune, in response to the news, back on April 29, 2004, that a local schoolteacher was accused of trying to obtain child pornography. What Busby actually said: “He is a teacher who put in a lot of extra time. He was always willing to lend a hand. I was shocked at the investigation.” In other words, she was expressing surprise at the news. Not endorsing anything. And note the GOP ad's blatantly falsifed alteration of gender in claiming who "was always willing to lend a hand."