7.19.2006

Sen. Mike DeWine's Burning Twin Towers 9-11 Campaign Ad "Doctored" Says US News & World Report

Story here (but why, oh why, do Republicans feel this great need to campaign on the graves of thousands of people? But they cry like little girls when Dems do it - and no, I don't like it when Dems campaign on death either):

The controversial video of the burning World Trade Center towers in a television campaign ad for Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine is doctored, U.S. News has learned. The television spot, which has been lambasted by critics as a political exploitation of the Sept. 11, attacks Democrat challenger Rep. Sherrod Brown for being weak on national security.

On the air in major Ohio markets since last Friday, the ad shows the towers, with the south building billowing smoke, which gradually drifts upward. In the video, the north tower, which was struck first on September 11, is undamaged.

"This particular image is impossible," says W. Gene Corley, a stuctural engineer who led FEMA's building performance study on the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. Corley reviewed the ad atwww.brownvotes.com for U.S. News. "The north tower was hit first [so] the south tower could not be burning without the North Tower burning." Corley also says, "the smoke is all wrong." The day of the attacks, the plumes of ash were drifting to the southeast. "The smoke on 9/11 was never in a halo like that," Corley says.

DeWine's office acknowledged the error. "The Senator was unaware that the image of the towers was a graphic representation and has instructed the campaign to replace the footage with a picture of the Twin Towers," his office said in a statement on Wednesday evening.