ArchivedArticles: News reports, public record contradict 'Willie Horton' ad by right-wing 'move on' group

News reports, public record contradict 'Willie Horton' ad by right-wing 'move on' group

By Jackson Thoreau

A Willie Horton-like ad being run this week by a right-wing, copy-cat "move on" political action committee - whose founder is a partisan Republican with strong ties to the Bush family - is contradicted by news accounts of the case.

MoveOnForAmerica.org, a new 527 group that copies the successful progressive organization MoveOn.org, plans to start airing the bogus ads on Sept. 7 in the Washington, D.C., area. The campaign will move to swing states Sept. 13.

The first ad criticizes Sen. John Kerry's role as a private lawyer in representing George Reissfelder, who spent 15 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a murder, according to The Associated Press and other media reports.

The ad, of course, is full of lies. MoveOnForAmerica's Web site says that Reissfelder never served any time, which is wrong, according to news reports and prison records.

The right-wing group also says that Kerry helped secure a furlough for Reissfelder in 1974, during which he escaped for three years and eventually pled guilty to attempted murder related to trying to pull a gun on an officer as he was being arrested.

For Kerry to have worked on this case in 1974 would have been illegal, not to mention practically impossible. In 1974, Kerry was still in law school, according to Wikipedia. He was not admitted to the Massachusetts bar until 1976 and immediately went to work as a full-time prosecutor in the District Attorney