New York, NY, June 28, 2004 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today expressed disappointment that Nazi images are still prominently featured in a video on the official re-election campaign Web site of President George W. Bush.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

We are disappointed that the Bush-Cheney campaign has not removed Nazi images, including Adolf Hitler, from the President's re-election Web site.   The campaign's rehashing of what had appeared on the MoveOn.org site, which was removed after outcry from ADL and others, is inappropriate and offensive.

Using images of Hitler and terminology from the Nazi regime in campaign attacks is offensive and demeaning to the memory of the six million and others who died in the Holocaust.  However well intentioned, the Bush-Cheney campaign's attempt to add a disclaimer to the video -- suggesting that they were only using it to show how their adversaries have used Hitler's image– does not go far enough.  We urge the Bush-Cheney campaign to immediately remove the Hitler imagery from the video.

Earlier this year, after a proliferation of references to Hitler and the Nazis began appearing in the wind-up to the Presidential election season, we called on the Democratic and Republican parties to refrain from adopting Nazi imagery as a political attack tool.  We had hoped then that both parties had heard our concerns.  For us, this is neither a Democratic nor a Republican issue, but rather a matter of respecting the feelings of those who could be offended by such images, including Jewish Holocaust survivors and their families.

ADL has been consistent in condemning the use of Nazi images in political campaigns and in the public arena.  In a letter to former Vice President Al Gore, the League expressed concern about his exploitation of Nazi imagery in his June 24 speech at Georgetown University Law Center.  In a letter to Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, ADL said it was troubled by his comparison, in his June 19 speech to the American Constitution Society, of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore to the circumstances by which Hitler and Mussolini ascended to power.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.