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Saturday, August 25, 2007

Freedoms Watch Videos Part #2

Online NewHour has the transcript of an interview done with Brad Blakeman, the president of this group, Freedoms Watch. (via memeorandum)

Below this post I will once again post all four of their current videos that are being seen on television throughout the country.

Excerpts:

JUDY WOODRUFF: You are spending, what, $15 million, some 20 states, because you're worried that Republican support for the war is falling away?

BRADLEY BLAKEMAN: No, not at all. What we're doing is we're giving voice to those people, ordinary people, Americans, who have either lost somebody in the war or have served and been injured themselves. There's no editorializing in our advertising. It's their own words.

And the only mention of Freedom's Watch, Judy, is to tell the American people who paid for it and to urge people, if you agree with the advertisements, then to call your congressperson. We're not singling out in our ads anyone by name; that is not our intent.

[...]

JUDY WOODRUFF: But your goal then, isn't it, to influence especially Republican members of Congress to stick with the president on the war?

BRADLEY BLAKEMAN: Judy, we are running these ads nationwide. They're running in Republican and Democratic districts. And a fair reading of these ads by anyone will see we're not targeting anyone by name. We haven't singled out anybody.

But what we will do is we'll give the American people the facts that there's another side of this story, and that is that Americans should not cut and run. We don't surrender in America. And switching votes for political reasons is not the way to go, and it will only embolden our enemies to do us further harm, and our allies.


A little further down he answers a question about declining to appear with a member of MoveOn.org:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we are going to hear from a spokesman from their group, from MoveOn.org. And by the way, I want to ask you, Brad Blakeman, we had asked you to appear with Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org, and you declined to do so. And I'm just curious about why that is.

BRADLEY BLAKEMAN: Well, first of all, I don't put our organization on a par, and we don't have anything in common with MoveOn.org or their affiliates, certainly don't believe that they're a credible group, as we are. So I am not going to share a discussion with a group that I, quite frankly, don't take seriously, and I think the American people in a fair reading of their information will say that they are incredible.


Read the whole transcript of the interview.

[Update]More media coverage for these Freedoms Watch ads over at Daily news Nation/World.

These videos are the first ones aired, I have seen them on television already and there are four of them, each 30 second videos.

Wounded Veteran:





Wife who has lost her husband:







Another Wounded Veteran speaks about anger at Congress and Victory
:







Gold Star Mother
:




They are touching and they are from a group that has been under represented in the debate...until now.

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