Tactless tactics

Politics | Negative ads and internet manipulation highlight 2006 campaign | John Dawson

If the Republican National Committee wanted a reasoned and tempered political advertisement, perhaps it shouldn't have asked legendary spoof director David Zucker to shoot the ad. Zucker, who directed Airplane! along with several Naked Gun films and the Scary Movie series, filmed two ads at the behest of GOP officials.

Zucker's product surprised Republicans for its no-holds-barred attacks on Democrats. In one, Zucker depicts terrorists pulling out a guitar and singing "Kumbaya" to distract Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeline Albright's attention from suicide bombers outside. "Making nice to our enemies will not make them nice to us," the narrator says.

In another, Zucker spoofs tax-and-spend liberals by imagining a world where you could see all the ways Democrats would like to tax citizens. Zucker's gag-a-minute approach comes alive in a hospital delivery room where a black-suited taxman wrestles dollar bills away from the doctor and even the just-born baby. "If Democrats take over Congress, they will raise taxes by $2.4 trillion to keep up with their reckless spending. . . . Maybe the question isn't, can you afford more of this, but can you afford more of them?" the narrator asks as a group of chanting taxmen march in lockstep toward the camera.