Bush Sues to Stop All 527s? Not Really

Even devoted news junkies couldn’t be faulted for falling for the delusion that former Texas Governor George W. Bush plans to join Senator John McCain in lawsuits meant to bring an end to all Section 527-related political lobbying organizations.

Yesterday’s USA Today, for example, wrote this:

President Bush (news – web sites) plans to join Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) in a court battle aimed at stopping political ads by outside groups, which have attacked Bush as well as John Kerry (news – web sites)’s Vietnam War record.

The New York Times put it this way:

President Bush [sic] said yesterday that he would team with Senator John McCain to force a crackdown on independent groups that run political attack advertisements.

You would have to dig quite a bit to find out, however, that Bush has no intention of suing ALL 527s. In fact, as the Times buried the real story down in paragraph 8:

Lawyers for Mr. Bush said Thursday that they were drafting two lawsuits. One, they said, is intended to expedite their complaint before the Federal Election Commission that Moveon.org, the Media Fund and America Coming Together, liberal groups running ads against the president, were illegally coordinating with Mr. Kerry. The other lawsuit, they said, would seek tighter restrictions on the groups’ activities.

In other words, Bush and McCain are ONLY planning to sue liberal 527s. They have complained about (in Bush’s case) all 527s and (in McCain’s case) the notorious Kerry-bashing Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads, but when it comes to putting their legal fees where their mouths are–well, that’s just not happening.

Once again, the Bushies’ shuck-and-jive act is playing the media for fools.

USA Today joined most other organizations in failing to note the fact that ONLY MoveOn.org and America Coming Together were to be targeted by Bush and Senator McCain.