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The Republican National Committee and its chairman have falsely accused MoveOn.org of sponsoring ads on its website which compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler. The claim is deliberately and maliciously misleading. . . . None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund.

This denial of responsibility is pure BS. They sponsored the contest and ran these two ads on their web site. In the Internet age, this constitutes publishing them -- even if only for "consideration". Just because they didn't pay to run them on TV does not mean they are not their ads. They are responsible for the content of their web site no matter how they talk about "slipping through their screening process"...period!

They had to view the ad -- and -- then do all the stuff necessary for the ad to appear on their web site...it is not like a forum where a moderator missed deleting something some outside party uploaded.

Could it be that MoveOn is invoking quantum principles? According to the "Schroeder's cat" model, an event both happened or not happened at the same time until an observer "openned the box", so to speak. In likewise fashion, MoveOn may have posted vicious material and they didn't at the same time, and it was the fault of the observer, in this case the Republican Party, that the event happened.

Or it could be that MoveOn are a bunch of stupid effers.

They had to view the ad -- and -- then do all the stuff necessary for the ad to appear on their web site..

Check this one out. Visit the website with all the ads displayed. Look at how the files are named. Starts with 1 and descends in order- almost. Numbers 2 and 16 are missing. I know for a fact that number 2 was one of the Hitler ads because I saved that file to my disk and that is how it is named.

I submit that those files are numbered chronologically for a good reason- they were meant to be the finalist list. Then when the controversy started and they had to pull them and bumped two others up. (actually, they pulled 2 and bumped 16 up but it was a Hitler ad too so they pulled it as well and bumped up 17). This means that the two Hitler ads were actually quite popular there.

Eli Pariser says the ad only got a few hundred views and very low ratings. This can't be true if one of the files was named "2" and the number "2" file is missing from the finalist page.

They're lying and there's the proof right there. They either forgot to go back and rename the files or they can't because it would screw their system up now.

We could nail them with this just by asking them why the files are named as they are on the finalist page.