Progress

This seems like a pretty effective ad to me:

It's worth saying that the sort of cost estimates you see in this ad, while accurate, are substantial under-estimates of the real monetary cost of the war. Soldiers injured during wartime will, for example, continue to receive medical treatment for their wounds for years if not decades. Somewhat similarly, a lot of the equipment that gets damaged or destroyed in Iraq is either being replaced with money that doesn't come out of the Iraq-designed funds or else hasn't actually been replaced yet but will need to be replaced down the road.

The fiscal cost of the war isn't the most important aspect by any means, but it is a good shorthand way of understanding why it is that we can't just keep doing this out of a vague hope of rolling snake eyes thirty times in a row.

Comments

Note that this is an "issue ad" that the Supreme Court just held, in ruling the McCain-Feingold law unconstitutional, can be placed within 60 days of an election.

The ruling, though sought by conservatives, may very well help liberals if it allows more ads like this.

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 13, 2007 2:00 PM

It's a very good ad.

Posted by Steve | July 13, 2007 3:03 PM

The ad is good on a number of levels. Yes, it makes a great point using the facts to demonstrate just how rote and ridiculous are Bush's protestations that "we're makin' progress in Iraq."

But, it also ties McConnell to Bush in a way that ol' Mitch probably does not like. It almost makes Bush his running mate. We need much more of this in districts all over the country. There will be a lot of vulnerable Republicans in 2008. Tying them tightly to Bush will make them even more so.

Posted by UncommonSense | July 13, 2007 3:34 PM

Another effective ad, in my opinion, would be playing audio clips of McConnell (or insert vulnerable Republican name here) slowly morphing into audio clips of George W. Bush comments (i.e. "progress in Iraq") while morphing a picture of McConnell into George Bush. All over ominous music. Tying every single war-supporting bastid to Bush is a sure winner this cycle.

Posted by Media Glutton | July 13, 2007 5:41 PM

And of course none of this counts the costs to the people(s) of Iraq...

Which reminds me, where on The Mall is the memorial to the million or two Vietnamese killed by the US under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon?

Posted by David Lloyd-Jones | July 13, 2007 6:32 PM