Last week Forbes.com announced that it was experimenting with a sponsored link technology which allowed it to embed links to advertisers within news stories on the website. So, for example, if an article mentions “Ford,” the page might have a link on the word that would take the reader to the Ford Motor Company.
Now I’m not an expert in journalistic ethics, but it seems to me that even with a firewall between the writers/editors and the advertising, this kind of an arrangement is bound to have an influence over news content sooner or later.
At any rate, it looks like the Washington Times has come up with the next best thing. Today Bill Gertz has an article outlining the newest terror threat warnings. In the middle of the piece is this blurb, anonymously sourced, of course:
“The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election,” the official said. “The view of al Qaeda is ‘anybody but Bush.'”
Catchy phrase, that, “Anyone but Bush”? So catchy that near the top of the article (when I viewed it) there’s a banner ad linking to this site which reads “10 out of 10 Terrorists Agree: Anybody But Bush.
Interesting coincidence, eh? What are the odds that a Washington Times piece just happens to work in concert with a GOP-leaning ad? But I guess a newspaper has got to do what a newspaper must do to get its “information” out.
After all, “who would Osama vote for?”
The truth hurts, huh? 😉
Anybody But Bush
Resonance: Terrorists For Kerry Wow… they’ve co-opted one of the more successful slogans of the left. The terrorists? No! The Republicans! The ABB slogan is now offically part of a smear campaign that basically equates voting for Kerry with terrorism…
I don’t think Osama bin-Laden, I don’t think anyone associated with al-Qaeda, I don’t think any terrorists give a tinker’s damn one way or another who wins the election.
The only hint of any sort of preference came in a quote a while back attributed to an Islamic terrorist group that said they wanted Bush to be re-elected because his bungling policies had been great for recruitment. I’ve always thought the quote was probably bogus but the point was valid.
I’m not a big fan of John Kerry; happily, I don’t live in a swing state so it doesn’t matter. But saying in effect that a vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorism is, in the colloquial if not the legal sense, criminal.