<nettime> Fwd: gwbush.com press release

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>]

     [orig to <lbo-talk@lists.panix.com>]

From: "gwbush.com" <info@gwbush.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 15:59:14 -0500

In bruising duel with computer programmer, George W Bush goes back for more.
Surprise twist: Paula Jones defender, The Rutherford Institute, enters the
ring.

Contact:
Zack Exley
617-216-5688
mailto:info@gwbush.com

George W Bush has escalated his war against Zack Exley, a 30 year-old Boston
computer programmer and creator of the satirical Web site, gwbush.com.  The
Bush campaign is now claiming that gwbush.com links to two pornographic Web
sites, and the campaign is naming two specific Web addresses of real
pornographic sites.

An article that appears today in the Village Voice concludes that gwbush.com
never linked to the named sites.  The Rutherford Institute, who represented
Paula Jones in her suit against president Clinton, has offered to defend
Exley against Bush.

Three previous attacks on Exley have made Governor Bush the laughing stock
of the Internet.  The American Spectator called Bush's obsession with the
parody site, "Dubya's dumbest move."  The New York Times Web site called it,
"a textbook case for campaigns on the wrong way to handle Internet critics."

But now George W Bush is going back for more.

The pornography charges first surfaced in a November 29 Washington Post
article in which Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes was quoted, "There were links
to pornographic sites on there. That's the real reason we did this,"
referring to the initial attack on the Web site.

Then several reporters contacted Exley regarding a December 17 press
conference in which Bush repeated the pornography charge.  The reporters
told Exley that Ben Ginsberg, national counsel to the Bush campaign, was
giving out addresses of two specific pornographic Web sites, and claiming
that gwbush.com linked to them.

Responding to the charge Exley said, "The Bush campaign knows that I never
linked to pornographic Web sites.  This is not only slander, it's free
advertising for two really disgusting Web sites."

Exley said the Village Voice article by Donna Ladd, which can be found on
the Web at <http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9952/ladd.shtml>, confirmed
that his site never linked to the sites named by the Bush campaign.

In a twist that may finally give pause to the Bush campaign, the Rutherford
Institute has offered to defend Exley.  The Voice article quotes Rutherford
representatives saying they wish to represent Exley against Bush's FEC
complaint as well as against Bush's new personal smear campaign.

Exley thinks he knows what caused Bush's latest attack, "I recently posted
the audio of the press conference where he said, 'There ought to be limits
to freedom,' and called me a 'garbage man' for poking fun of him on the Web.
Or maybe it's that he's starting to get a reputation as the anti-First
Amendment candidate and needs some other explanation for his attacks on me."

A recent editorial in the Austin American Statesman cited both the case of
gwbush.com and harassment by the Texas governor's office of Texas A&M
University for comments by professors critical of the Bush family.  The Bush
campaign responded to the editorial with a December 17 letter to the editor
citing pornography as the reason for the attack against gwbush.com.

Another reason might be that Exley has raised over $10,000 dollars on his
Web site to run satirical radio and television ads that deal with
allegations of drug use in Bush's past, the governor's dubious war record,
and his acceptance to Yale and Harvard Business school despite lousy grades.

- -30-

Links:

The parody site: <http://gwbush.com>
Village Voice article: <http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9952/ladd.shtml>
The Rutherford Institute: <http://www.rutherford.org/>

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