BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. The Bush administration has inaugurated its TV ad campaign with four new commercials, and here's what one prominent ad critic had to say, and I quote: "The first official Bush-Cheney ads are on the air, and holy smokes, we want to vote for him, we want to work for him, we want to have his baby." That critic is Bob Garfield who, in addition to being the co-host of this program is the longtime and much-feared ad critic for Ad Age, and he's followed election ads since -- how long, Bob?

BOB GARFIELD: I, I guess since the mid-term elections in '86.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So we thought we'd save time and money and tap him for his expertise rather than for his golden voice and good cheer as we usually do, so Bob, what's so great about these ads?

BOB GARFIELD:Well, first of all, as a matter of full disclosure, I am no George Bush fan, but as political advertising, which I would say historically has been pretty much a stain on our democracy, this is really outstanding, and generally inspires you with optimism, and you see a, a man who would appear to be a confident, able leader in full charge with a vision for the future. [CLIP OF AD PLAYS] [MUSIC UP & UNDER]

GEORGE W. BUSH: I know exactly where I want to lead this country. I know what we need to do to make the world more free and more peaceful. I know what we need to do to make sure every person has a chance at realizing the American dream. I know what we need to do to continue economic growth so people can find work.

BOB GARFIELD: These are beautifully shot, beautifully edited and, I think, as admirable for what they don't say as for what they do.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:And what they don't use are a lot of images of the burning towers -- just a few seconds, but that's been enough to spark outrage from some firefighters and families of the victims.

BOB GARFIELD:First of all, it's not a few seconds; it's actually less than one second in two separate commercials, and secondly, the fact is that it is certainly central to the campaign, certainly to this president's themes in the campaign, and he can scarcely be deprived talking about 9/11. If he didn't, it would be the elephant in the room, wouldn't it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:But it would probably behoove him to make only slight and occasional reference to that elephant lest he get slammed with more charges of exploitation.

BOB GARFIELD:And clearly, the president campaign team have anticipated the potential problems by being as circumspect as they have been. Based on the document itself which I have scrutinized quite substantially, I see no basis for the charge of exploitation.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So we've just come off a campaign where the would be Democratic nominees went relatively easy on each other and relatively hard on the president. Now we're down to one nominee, obviously, and the Bush ads were produced before the president knew with certainty who his opponent would be.

BOB GARFIELD:Yeah, and so therefore you can enjoy them for about five minutes, because [LAUGHS] if history is any judge, this feel-good, optimistic tone will quickly disappear and it'll pretty much be all Kerry-bashing all the time, and at least in the year 2000, the optimism -- I'm a uniter, I'm a - not a divider, compassionate conservative stuff quickly went out the window for tactical commercials that quite savaged Al Gore. In those days, much of this could be done by proxies. That's not so easy under the new rules, so the Bush-Cheney campaign'll have to do it themselves.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Let me ask you about those new rules. In this election cycle we do have the new stand-by-your-ad requirement mandated by the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Law which calls for the candidate to say they endorsed whatever ad is playing. So do you think that will reduce the mud-slinging of yesteryear?

BOB GARFIELD:All I can say is I expect an equal amount of mud-slinging; I just expect that some of the phrasing will be a little more delicate and maybe some of the cheap tricks to generate voter anger and so forth like minor chords played underneath very grim black and white shots of the political opponent, you know, made to appear more like a child molester than the Democratic nominee. You know, that might take a brief holiday, but there's just no question in my mind but that the Bush-Cheney campaign is going to hit hard against nominee Kerry, and the president will stand by the ads.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now we did see a pretty tough anti-Kerry ad produced by the Bush-Cheney Campaign on the internet, and of course McCain-Feingold doesn't apply to ads on the internet, so do you think that's where the fur will really fly?

BOB GARFIELD:Hm! Well-- [LAUGHS] Let's see, what do I say? Brooke, well that's the 64,000 dollar question. Actually, no. I think it suited the Bush-Cheney Campaign originally to do it that way to get around the stand-by-your-ad provisions, but you can't do that for the whole campaign because undecided voters are not going to go rushing to the, the website. So if they want to reach undecided voters, particularly those in swing states, they're going to have to advertise, and they're going to have to do it on television.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I think they're both going to get a lot more bang for their buck because of people like us who will spend all their time, in the absence of other news, simply dissecting their ads.

BOB GARFIELD:Yeah, it's-- it's called free media. You know, even if the President or Senator Kerry says something nasty in an ad and it's portrayed unflatteringly in the media, the [LAUGHS] - the fact is the message is still out there and it hasn't cost them a nickel.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Bob, thanks so much for everything.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, Brooke, it's nice to be on the show. I hope to do it again. [LAUGHTER]