BuzzFeed follows up on yesterday's big story, the misuse by conservative group Americans for Prosperity of a photo taken in the aftermath of the Aurora theater shootings in 2012. As it turns out, yesterday wasn't their first offense:
Late last year, Americans For Prosperity posted a tweet attacking Colorado Sen. Mark Udall and Gov. John Hickenlooper for being “Obama buds.” The Koch-funded group used an image of the two Democrats standing with President Obama looking dismayed to make the point that the three men were sharing “a sinking feeling.”
The image AFP Colorado used was taken at a Colorado hospital in July 2012, where Obama and the two men were gathered to visit victims of the Aurora shooting.
The picture and a tweet defending its use remain posted to AFP’s Colorado account.
The group reacted very differently Wednesday when it used the same image from the Colorado hospital in a TV ad…
When Americans for Prosperity posted this photo last December, local Twitter pundit Janus303 immediately called them out:
@AFPColorado Using photos from a tragedy to score political points again. You're sick. @MarkUdall @hickforco #coleg #copolitics
— Michael Ditto (@janus303) December 7, 2013
Which AFP Colorado didn't react well to:
Since we began writing this blog post about fifteen minutes ago, AFP Colorado has deleted all of their Tweets from this exchange in response to BuzzFeed's inquiry. The replies to them remain visible, and we screen-grabbed the originals before they went down. Obviously, AFP didn't show anything like the contrition shown yesterday after they were called out by media nationwide back in December.
It seems to us like this pissy response from December might betray how they really feel.
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This is the answer AFP should have given you yesterday. Liberals pounce on any weakness, and apologies only embolden you. This ad didn't offend Colorado Pols, that's why they republished it and promoted it. Never concede liberals anything: that's the only lesson of this silliness.
What happened to "Kudos, AFP, for doing the honorable thing once you were told about it?"
The lesson is don't use the tragedy pictures. It's super easy, just look at the infromation accompanying the photo you want to use and if it says a buttload of folks were killed, move to the next image. Photoshop your own from two separate sad face pics, for that matter. Take a happy picture and put diabolical handlebar mustaches on them for all I care. Pols had that ridiculous one of Cory Gardner a while back.
This isn't about the libs, it's about your buds at the AFP 2nd Amendmenting themselves in the hoofs every ten minutes.
I would support Alan Franklin giving AFP media lessons
Franklin and Progress Now have no room to talk about anything. They're the ones who came up with those demeaning Hosurance ads, aren't they?
Uh, no Moddy. That would be the Colorado Health exchange, who contracted the ad production to some other company I'm not going to look up for you right now. I know all we libs look alike, but, sheesh.
And to be honest, I liked the "hosurance" ads, as well as most of the other ads. I didn't like the bad grammar of "Do you got insurance?" but the ads did a good job of portraying a spectrum of reasons diverse people might want to have insurance.
That's not what it says at the bottom of the Got Insurance website:
Progress Now made those disgusting sexploitation ads.
Dear ShitStain,
What bizarro universe do you inhabit where the Got Insurance campaign ads were either "disgusting" or "sexploitation" ads?
Everybody makes mistakes. Franklin is still very savvy with media.
PaCHING200! Progressicat!
Which is why BlueCat is correct in advising everyone to never vote for any Repuglican until you guys grow a brain, a conscience and get in touch with reality for once in your lives.
Wasn't I being attacked for "political opportunism" on this page earlier this week? If ColoradoPols was truly concerned about misuse of the photo, now that AFP has apologized it would MoveOn. That it has not is an indication that other interests are at work
Bingo! Colorado Pols has no actual emotional feeling over this picture. They saw an opportunity to attack a political opponent, and the liberal media was happy to oblige.
As I said, the fact that they are now hosting and promoting the original ad proves they are playing politics. AFP should not be intimidated by their antics.
You know nothing. You're a dimwitted water carrier for cowardly filth. AFP is pure evil.
The chutzpah of using insentive language in a discussion about insensitive use of a picture is____.
"okay if you're a Republican"?
Ummmm, yeah . . .
. . . that sounds about right.
Geebus Moddy- some day some wingnut, probably not you, is going to tell all of us precisely which of the handful of mega-corporations, some multinational, that own or control most media are liberal and why.
Typical Fladenism. Don't blame the people who did something offensive. Blame the people who dared to say that they did something offensive, and won't let it be swept under the rug.
Elliot just can't stay away from Koch-sucking. It's like a compulsion, or something.
So, Fladen doesn't seem to understand the difference between a blog reporting on AFP's indecency, and his own disngenuous caterwauling on Facebook.
Surprised? Anyone?
Bueller?
Oh, come on, Elliott. That wasn't an attack. If I attack you, you'll know it. I'm not as subtle as Curmudgeon or Dawn Patrol.
What I meant was that you knew darn well that the whole insurance drama was 60% Fladen not taking care of business, and the rest some combo of normal insurance company cancellations, which most people experience every year, and MAYBE a little bit the ACA, and "If you like your plan," etc.
Yet you chose to write a FB post bemoaning how your premiums went up and "Fuck Obama this" and "I hate Democrats" that. I call that political opportunism – taking your own misfortune, in which you had some responsibility, and promoting it to your FB buds like, "Of course, Obama did this. Fuck Obama." You probably have some great legal reasoning as to why I shouldn't see it this way, but whatever.
I did give you props for not volunteering to be a spokesmodel for the next Obamacare horror story,. Let's leave it at that.
Calm down BC. You know damned well that Elliot couldn't give a shit less about what's right.
Actually, Ellit, you're being attacked for being an asshole. Live with it.
Boo-frickin-hoo. Cry me a river, hypocrite.
Fuck off, asshole. You're the shitstain in the Koch's tighty whities.
Your phony high-horse croaked eons ago. We're going to politically head-punch you lying, vicious slugs, over and over, until we crush you. Get used to it.
You seem quite defensive DP
And you seem, shyster, like your fancy law school education did you no good at all.
Keep hoping and sucking that AFP Koch, Moddy . . .
. . . someday you're bound to get a little bit of well-deserved trickle down!
Your response is disgusting and replusive, Moody.
ColoradoPols published it because it is news. This is a political news blog.
It was a mistake. No, really – we had no idea that the picture was from the Aurora shooting. Bullcrap and good catch.
All I have to say is something about the First Rule of Holes. They need to quit digging.
Another right-wing hate machine that doesn't understand how the internet works. Deleting Tweets? What, the white-out didn't take on the screen?
And now they're trying to delete their tweets about Bundy. Sad effort.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-kochs-afp-starts-scrubbing-its-bundy