Clarke Wants TV Ad With His Voice Pulled

The former White House counterterrorism chief who has heaped criticism on President Bush’s response to terrorist threats protested the use of his voice and words Wednesday in an anti-Bush television commercial.

Richard Clarke told Associated Press that he wanted the ad, which quotes him directly, pulled from CNN, Fox News Channel and other news outlets.

The ad was sponsored by a political action committee of MoveOn.org, a group opposed to Bush’s reelection. It began airing Tuesday and was scheduled to run through Friday. MoveOn said Wednesday that it would continue to run the ad.

Clarke complained that he was not consulted about the spot before it was launched. He has given interviews on national television and written a book critical of the president.

“I just don’t want to be used,” Clarke told Associated Press.

“I don’t want to be part of what looks like a political TV ad. I’m trying hard to make this not a partisan thing but a discussion of how we stop terrorism from happening in the future -- keep this on a policy issue. I don’t want this to become any more emotional or personal than it has already.”

Efforts to reach Clarke on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The ad shows a picture of Bush walking at the White House and quotes from an interview Clarke gave CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired in March. It does not name Clarke but describes him as an aide who served every president since Ronald Reagan.

“Frankly, I find it outrageous that a president is running for reelection on the grounds that he’d done such great things on terrorism,” Clarke is quoted as saying. He adds that Bush “ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11.”

The sponsor of the ad rebuffed Clarke’s request to pull it.

“I totally understand and respect his will to keep himself out of the political fray,” said Eli Pariser, executive director of the MoveOn political action committee. “But the things that he’s revealing have real political consequences because they demonstrate that Bush mismanaged his core election issue.”

Pariser said the group had a right to quote Clarke under the 1st Amendment.

“Generally speaking, you can quote public figures in an ad or wherever you like,” Pariser said.

The group announced its intention to run the ad last week in a script circulated by e-mail. The script contained Clarke’s quote, but the former counterterrorism chief said nothing about it until Wednesday.

The Bush campaign and the campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, declined comment.

Republicans have charged that MoveOn is coordinating its TV ads with the Kerry campaign.

The Democrat’s aides and the leader of the liberal group have denied the charge.