Boston Globe:In Bush, Kerry ads, truth is up for debate

[NewHampshireDem]

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/04/29/in_bush_kerry_ads_truth_is_up_for_debate/

In a flurry of ads and public statements in recent weeks, the Bush campaign has painted an especially dark portrait of John F. Kerry that suggests he would ''raise taxes by $900 billion," permit off-shore drilling in Florida, impose a $657-per-family gas tax, and weaken US defenses in the fight against terrorism if he were president.

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The Massachusetts senator and his Democratic allies, meanwhile, have accused Bush of hiding the true costs of continuing the war in Iraq, of policies that cost the US millions of jobs in the past four years, and of recklessly endangering Social Security.

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Although there is nothing unusual about distortions in politics, the current race is now witness to nonstop disputes over statements by both sides -- in a campaign that is already more intense than any other at this early stage and has taken a sharp turn toward the negative, according to political analysts and advisers to both the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

Yesterday, for instance, a Democratic group announced a new ''Database of Lies" that purports to chart ''conservatives' lies, distortions, and dishonesty" -- adding to the ''D-Bunker" feature on the Kerry website, which ''debunks" Bush claims.

D-Bunker's claims, in turn, are countered by the ''D-Bunker-buster" on the Bush campaign site.

''There's so much bogus stuff popping up, you can't take a swing at everything" -- on both sides, said former reporter Brooks Jackson, who analyzes ads for the Factcheck.org website, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. ''This has turned negative sooner than any election campaign that I can recall, primarily because it started sooner."

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