USA Today Pulls RightMarch Ad Demanding Accountability From CBS Over 'Legal' Issues

By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
September 27, 2004

A new ad from conservative political action group RightMarch.com demanding "accountability from Dan Rather and CBS News" over the forged documents questioning President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard that was supposed to run in USA Today nationwide last week was pulled at the last minute by the newspaper for "legal" issues over the content of the ad.

Talon News reported last Wednesday that RightMarch.com would be releasing the new ad in USA Today on Thursday. However, RightMarch.com said unfortunately "you won't see it there" because USA Today "pulled our ad."

"At the last minute, we got a call that USA Today would not run our ad," RightMarch.com wrote in an e-mail to its supporters. "We've run three hard-hitting full-page nationwide ads with [USA Today] before, so we were caught off-guard by their rejection."

Although they were not given an official explanation for why their ad was not going to be run initially, RightMarch.com said the "legal department [for USA Today] had nixed it."

"Maybe that's not surprising, since USA Today had been given the same forged documents that CBS News had gotten, and had run the same story to begin with," RightMarch.com noted.

However, the "official story" from USA Today is that they would not run any "political" ads unless the ad is charged "full rate card prices" to run the ad.

"That means paying much higher rates than anything we've paid in the past," RightMarch.com complained, explaining that most ads get discounts off of the rate card.

Yet RightMarch.com says this excuse is "just a smokescreen for the truth" that USA Today is "scared of the ad" and simply "pulled it."

"But they're not going to be able to stop us," RightMarch.com proclaimed, revealing that they are sending their ad to a "network of newspapers across the nation" that will run in every major market.

"Our ad will run, from sea to shining sea," RightMarch.com concluded.