Wingnuts wrong about MoveOn "discount"

To hear the wingnutosphere tell it, the New York Times gave MoveOn a huge discount on its full-page ad against David Petraeus. But already the wingnuts' right-wing talking point has been blasted out of the water.

MoveOn ran an accurate and fair ad on Monday criticizing the general. But the American Conservative Union has filed a complaint with the FEC claiming that the ad's price of $65,000 was an illegal 64% sweetheart discount granted by the Times. Rudy Giuliani has picked up this wingnut meme by attacking the Times for this alleged discount - and by assailing Hillary Clinton for failing to condemn MoveOn's ad.

But now look! The Giuliani campaign has now taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times to defend Petraeus. And guess what it costs? It costs them $65,000 - which is the same as what MoveOn paid.

It turns out that, while the paper's rate card says full-page black-and-white political ads on weekdays cost $181,692, both the MoveOn ad and the Giuliani ad were purchased on a standby basis, which costs some $65,000. The Times charged both MoveOn and Giuliani the exact same price for their ads.

So the wingnuts who claim MoveOn got an illegal special deal can shut up now. Except they won't. The right-wing New York Post ran a downright false headline claiming the Times gave MoveOn a discount, and continues to run articles falsely claiming such. A Times spokeswoman says that the Times doesn't even see the ad until after they quote the price for it.

(Source: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=120480)