RNC blasts Howard Dean for using ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ footage in TV ad

Robert “Mike” Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), continued to slam his Democratic counterparts for an ad they are running against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).

Duncan on Tuesday accused Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean of running an ad that features footage from director Michael Moore’s controversial movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

{mosads}The ad, which slams McCain for his now-famous New Hampshire town hall line that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 100 years, features footage of an improvised explosive device (IED) going off near U.S. soldiers. ABCNews confirmed it was the same footage that appeared in Moore’s movie.

In a letter to Dean, Duncan called Moore’s movie a “conspiracy theory” and accused the DNC of not respecting McCain and U.S. troops.

“The DNC’s combining its gross mischaracterizations with footage made famous by a movie director who meets with dictators and continually expresses caustic anti-American rhetoric only further reveals the DNC’s utter lack of respect for Sen. McCain and his service to our country,” Duncan wrote.

The DNC said it bought the footage from Getty Images. They noted it was created by Associated Press Television and has been “used by a number of projects, including Frontline’s documentary, ‘Bush’s War.’”

“The Democratic Party will not be lectured to about patriotism or the well-being of our brave men and women in uniform by a Republican Party whose leader misled us into the war, sent our troops without the proper equipment, and has not done nearly enough to ensure we honor their service when they come home,” DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said in a statement.

On Monday Duncan asked the cable networks not to run the ad. He argues it contains false information and “constitutes an illegal excessive in-kind contribution to the party’s candidates.

When McCain said U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 100 years, he likened that scenario to the U.S. presence in South Korea, adding that it would not involve continued violence against American troops.

The DNC is sticking by its assertion that regardless of the circumstances, McCain’s belief that the U.S. could be in Iraq for that long makes him unfit to be commander in chief.

“John McCain and the Republican Party should either have the courage to defend his words truthfully or tell the American people what his exit strategy in Iraq is,” Finney said.