A new TV ad attacking Congressman Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, violates TVW's copyright and user agreement and needs to be stop airing, says Mike Bay, TVW's vice president of programming.

The ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee uses what Bay says is a clip from a TVW recording of Reichert speaking in May to the annual conference of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington.

Bay said that people who purchase TVW tapes agree to a policy that says "you cannot edit it or use it for commercial or political purposes." He said he has called the DCCC to ask them to stop airing the ad and is waiting back to hear from someone in D.C.

The ad opens with a shot of Reichert speaking at the Cascade Conference:

Reichert: "So when the leadership comes to me and says 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority,' I do it."

Narrator: "And when they told Dave Reichert to give billions to big oil he did it;
and to vote against cracking down on price gouging, he did it. Three times.

Now we now why.

Dave Reichert, another vote for Bush's agenda.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.

The Reichert campaign issued a statement earlier today saying that the quote was taken out of context.

Congressman Reichert stands up to leadership and the President when their interests aren't in the best interests of the Eighth District," said Kimberly Cadena, Reichert's campaign spokesperson. "It's shameless that Darcy and the DCCC has taken a portion of Congressman Reichert's explanation of his stands against leadership out of context.

Here's the rest of what Reichert said in that portion of his brief speech: (Note: I mistakenly left off the earlier portion of his comments which I transcribed from TVW and have added that to this transcript. I think it gives the full context for the quote.)

I've been to district meetings here on this side, in my district, where people say, 'Why in the world would I vote for you. It's just like voting for a Democrat, for cying out loud. I'm going to vote Libertarian.' And I said, 'You know what sir, that'd be a huge mistake and here's why.'

...

I wanted to explain to this person how things work a ltitle bit back in Washington, D.C., and why certain votes have to be taken.

Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says, `Dave, we want you to vote a certain way.' Now, they know I can do that over here; that I have to do that over here. In other districts, that's not a problem, but here I have to be able to be very flexible in where I place my votes.

Because the big picture here is, keep this seat, keep the majority, keep the country moving forward with Republican ideals, especially on the budget, on protecting our troops, protecting this country. Right? Being responsible with taxpayer dollars. All of those things. That's the big picture. Not the vote I place on ANWR that you may not agree with, or the vote that I place on protecting salmon.

You have to be flexible. So when the leadership comes to me and says 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority,' I do it. There are some times when I say 'No, I won't.' There are times they have things come to the floor like Schiavo. I was one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats on Schiavo because it was the right thing to do. Government should not have been involved in that decision. Period.

UPDATE: DCCC communications director Bill Burton told me:

"We have heard from TVW and we are very carefully weighing all their concerns."

He said the Democrats got the tape from a "publicly available source." They didn't purchase the tape from TVW. Bay said anyone who buys a tape agrees not to use it for commercial or political purposes.

There may be a fair use argument to be made for a short clip off of TVW. But so far I can't recall anyone else using TVW tape in a political ad.

Here's the ad in question.