GOP Senator "Questioned the Patriotism" of Democrat Max Cleland?

The Times conintues to spread mythology about a 2002 campaign ad targeting former Sen. Max Cleland, Democrat of Georgia.

Former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Democratic Senate candidate Jim Martin in Georgia, who is in a runoff vote with Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss to decide an important Senate seat. Chambliss has been a liberal target ever since he beat Democratic Sen. Max Cleland in 2002, in part through an infamous television ad that challenged Cleland's credibility in the war on terror, ad ad reviled by liberals and the Times.

 

Ever since, theTimes has distorted the content and thrust of the ad to make Cleland out as a victim of sleazy Republican tactics, It did so againin a Wednesday evening posting on its "Caucus" blog by reporter Robbie Brown. "Bill Clinton Stumps for Challenger in Georgia Senate Runoff," repeated the same myth about Cleland the Times has been pushing for six years.

 

Former President Bill Clinton took the stump on Wednesday to support the Democratic candidate for Senate in Georgia, Jim Martin, who faces a challenging runoff election next month.

 

Mr. Martin narrowly secured a runoff against the incumbent Republican, Saxby Chambliss, in a three-way race in which no candidate received 50 percent of the vote. The Georgia seat could help Democrats earn a coveted filibuster-proof 60-vote Senate majority.

 

....

 

In his address, Mr. Clinton criticized Mr. Chambliss for his 2002 campaign, in which Mr. Chambliss questioned the patriotism of the incumbent Democrat, Max Cleland, a triple amputee from wounds received in the Vietnam War. Mr. Clinton said Mr. Chambliss was running a negative campaign again this year and asked voters to back Mr. Martin, a former member of the Georgia General Assembly, whom he described as a "nice, humble" candidate.

 

Once more, with feeling: The ad in question opened with a montage of four photographs, one each of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and two othersshowing U.S. troops, as a narrator reads: "As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead."

 

Judging by the paper's long history of misreprentations of the Chambliss ad, No one at the Times has apparently actually watched it.