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Tennessee RNC Attack Ad Pulled: Blame Canada?

What got that racist anti Harold Ford attack ad pulled off the air? Was it complaints from NAACP? The DNC? Or was it our neighbors to the north? This, from a Canadian news station:

It's not often Canadians care about who's running for the U.S. Senate. But when we figure prominently in one of those quintessential American-style attack ads, nearly everyone on this side of the border sits up and takes notice.

A fierce fight between a Tennessee Republican candidate and his Democratic opponent has gotten personal - and Canada is right in the middle of it.

The controversial commercial from right wing candidate Bob Corker attacks a man named Harold Ford. It features supposedly ordinary citizens commenting on the Democrat, indicating he'll increase taxes and take guns out of the hands of residents, two huge issues in the south. There's also a shot of a rather questionable young woman who claims she's spent time with Ford at "The Playboy Club". But it's the next statement that seems to have rankled many. It comes from a comment made about some recent controversial nuclear tests.

"Canada can take care of North Korea," a man who resembles a young Wilfrid Brimley jokes. "They're not busy." The suggestion that we aren't pulling our weight in the world - and the fact that we've lost 42 soldiers in Afghanistan - is never mentioned.

The commercial, which has already been part of an equally nasty campaign between Ford and Corker, has been the subject of a protest by Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. And that complaint has apparently led to action.

Officials in Tennessee have agreed to pull the offending advertisement. But the U.S. Ambassador to this country has a response to our anger. He notes Canadian ads during the last election treated U.S. President George Bush with far more contempt and no one really issued any major complaints about those.

Posted by Clara Jeffery on 10/26/06 at 5:08 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |