Flag-Draped Coffins Ad Pulled After Denver Newspaper Objects

By: A Republican congressional candidate pulled a picture of a Marine's flag-draped casket from a campaign ad after a Denver newspaper complained the photo was used without permission and threatened to sue, a campaign spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The Rocky Mountain News said Paul Nelson's campaign used the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo showing the casket of a Marine killed in Iraq without permission in violation of copyright laws.

Nelson, a Hudson real estate developer and former Marine, is challenging Democratic incumbent Rep. Ron Kind in District 3 in western Wisconsin. Kind has held the office since 1997.

"We're really disturbed that somebody who was a Marine would essentially use the suffering of a Marine family without seeking permission to use the photograph as is required under the law, and cause them unnecessary grief as they see how the death of their loved one is being used. It's totally inappropriate, and it's wrong," said John Temple, editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News.

Sheila Mealey, a spokeswoman for Nelson, said the disputed picture in the ad, which began running on a Madison television station in mid-October, was replaced Monday with a photo showing several flag-drapped coffins. The ad is to run again on a La Crosse television station on Saturday.

"We decided we don't need the distraction here in the last days of the campaign," she said Tuesday.

Nelson described Temple's complaints as "huffery," Mealey said, reading from his statement that added: "That photograph was used to illustrate my position that our Congress and especially our congressman should be doing more to protect and support our troops."

Nelson titled the ad with the disputed war photo "Sex Studies." It infers Kind voted to "gut military spending" and deprive troops of the money needed to "fight for us" by approving money for sex research, citing grants made by the National Institute of Health.

Kind called the ad factually incorrect and an "outrageous lie."

Joe Wineke, chairman of the state Democratic Party, called on Nelson to pull the ad from the airways and his campaign Web site.