WASHINGTON — Sen. John F. Kerry took a cue from Sen. John McCain on Tuesday and denounced a television ad by one of his allies attacking President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.
In the latest twist in an ongoing debate about military credentials, Kerry condemned the new ad by the MoveOn political action committee, even though it was produced in response to an ad questioning Kerry's Vietnam War record.
"This should be a campaign of issues, not insults," Kerry said in a written statement.
Kerry called the ad "inappropriate" after McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Vietnam prisoner of war, criticized the MoveOn commercial. The 30-second ad accuses Bush of using family connections to avoid the Vietnam War.
McCain, who is popular with independents, is campaigning for Bush but has come to Kerry's defense against Republican attacks on the candidate's military record. He recently criticized an anti-Kerry ad that featured Vietnam veterans as "dishonest" and "dishonorable."
Although MoveOn, an independent liberal group, came to Kerry's aid with a counterattack ad, the Democrat said he agreed with McCain that it was over the top.
But the executive director of MoveOn's political action committee said his group had no plans to pull the spot, which began running Tuesday in three battleground states.
And a Bush campaign spokesman didn't see Kerry's action as doing the president any favor, saying the Massachusetts senator's condemnation of the anti-Bush ad "reeks of hypocrisy."
During a news conference arranged by the Kerry campaign earlier in the day, some supporters repeated the central allegation in the MoveOn ad -- that Bush used his father's influence as a congressman to get him into the Texas Air National Guard rather than serve in Vietnam.
"John Kerry condemns the ad on one hand and then his campaign's surrogates go out and echo the baseless charges that appear in the ad," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. "It's typical John Kerry: Say one thing, do another."
The MoveOn ad features footage of a young Bush in a National Guard uniform, with the announcer saying that Bush "used his father to get into the National Guard."
The spot also criticizes the president for failing to condemn the ad attacking Kerry, "a man who asked to go to Vietnam."
The MoveOn ad was produced in response to the anti-Kerry ad by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The ad featured 13 veterans who served in close proximity to Kerry in Vietnam accusing him of lying about his military service.
