US TV networks refuse to run right-wing mosque-bashing ad

A conservative political action committee blasted the CBS and NBC networks Wednesday for rejecting its ad imploring Americans to fight the mosque proposed for Ground Zero.

Titled “The Audacity of Jihad“, the commercial intersperses graphic footage of the 9/11 attacks with armed Muslim militants and the sounds of Muslims praying.

The narrator of the 60-second spot proposed by the National Republican Trust says, “On Sept. 11, they declared war against us. And to celebrate that murder of 3,000 Americans, they want to build a monstrous 13-story mosque at Ground Zero.”

In e-mails to the group, CBS and NBC officials said the ad did not meet the networks’ standards and guidelines for broadcast.

NRT executive director R. Scott Wheeler accused the networks of being two-faced, arguing they have run ads by such left-leaning groups as MoveOn.org.

Wheeler described the networks as “a very weak media that seems to be interested in only defending Muslims as poor victims.”

He said his group was planning to pay the networks more than $50,000 to run the ad.

CBS and NBC Universal corporate officials confirmed the ad was rejected by both networks.

New York Daily News, 15 July 2010