Puppies
The other big news of the last week has been the release of the sleazy BC04 ad entitled Wolves. If you haven't seen it yet, trek on over to the George Bush web site (I can't link to it out of good conscience) and check it out. I can see that they're aiming for this year's "Daisy" ad (the one from the 60s showing a little girl holding a daisy, which transitions to a mushroom cloud; it was used by Lyndon Johnson to make Barry Goldwater look like a dangerous war monger). But it really comes out as completely laughable. (It's even quickly sprouted its own joke site: Wolfpacks for Truth.) Here's the text of the ad:

In an increasingly dangerous world… Even after the first terrorist attack on America … John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America ’s intelligence operations. By 6 billion dollars… Cuts so deep they would have weakened America ’s defenses. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.

And speaking of laughable, so is the notion that John Kerry himself was going to bring down America's defenses through proposed intelligence spending cuts. FactCheck.org has the skinny:

A new Bush ad claims Kerry supported cuts in intelligence “so deep they would have weakened America ’s defenses” against terrorists, and shows a pack of hungry-looking wolves preparing to attack. Actually, the cut Kerry proposed in 1994 amounted to less than 4 percent, as part of a proposal to cut many programs to reduce the deficit.

And in 1995 Porter Goss, who is now Bush’s CIA Director, co-sponsored an even strong deficit-elimination measure that would have cut CIA personnel by 20 percent over five years. When asked about that at his confirmation hearings he didn't disavow it.

[...]

Another Republican-sponsored cut similar to Kerry's proposed 1995 measure actually became law. On the same day Kerry proposed his $1.5-billion cut spread over five years, the Senate passed by voice vote an amendment to eliminate $1 billion in intelligence funds for fiscal year 1996. That measure was proposed by Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. and a companion measure was co-sponsored by Kerry and Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. The cut eventually became law as part of a House-Senate package endorsed by the Republican leadership. Specter explained at the time that the $1-billion cut was intended to recapture funds that had been appropriated for spy satellites, but which had gone unspent by the National Reconnaissance Office.