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ProSense

(116,464 posts)
Fri Aug 10, 2012, 11:18 AM Aug 2012

The standards for 'embarrassment'

The standards for 'embarrassment'

By Steve Benen

You've got to be kidding me.

Mitt Romney said Thursday that President Obama and his allies should be embarrassed over a controversial ad from a super-PAC supporting the president that links the death of a cancer patient to the GOP contender's tenure at Bain Capital.

"You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad," Romney said on Bill Bennett's radio show. "They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead. You know, the various fact-checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they're wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them."

Look, I know the Priorities USA Action spot is provocative. The spot, which hasn't actually aired anywhere, is borderline on the fairness scale (even if the ad's detractors haven't pointed to specific inaccuracies). I get it.

But the ad was released the same day as Romney's welfare smear, which was as dishonest a national ad you'll see in this campaign cycle or any other. Paul Waldman wrote this week, "I've been paying very, very close attention to political ads for a long time. In my former career as an academic I did a lot of research on political ads. I've watched literally every single presidential general election campaign ad ever aired since the first ones in 1952.... But I cannot recall a single presidential campaign ad in the history of American politics that lied more blatantly than this one."

Romney wants to talk about politicians who'd get "embarrassed" when "people pointed out that something was inaccurate"? He wants to talk about "the various fact-checkers"? As Greg Sargent noted, &quot I)t remains puzzling that Romney would go here. After all, fact checkers have called out his ads as wrong, inaccurate, misleading or false again and again and again and again and again and again and again. If Romney pulled any of those ads, I'm not aware of it."

Ultimately, I'm having a hard time understanding how Romney's brain works. When he gets caught lying, he brazenly repeats the lie. When he runs dishonest ads, and gets called out by fact-checkers, he keeps airing them. And yet, Romney then whines in Republican media about his amazement that Democrats aren't "embarrassed" by "inaccurate" claims.

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/10/13218427-the-standards-for-embarrassment

The media does everything to promote the false equivalency bullshit. They rarely make an ongoing case denouncing Romney ads, but any Obama campaign ad deemed effective gets nitpicked to death about nuance. Has Romney pulled the ad about Ohio voting. It's a blatant and despicable lie. He was called on it, but he's still lying.

Here's Politico implying collusion by the Obama campaign.

Both the campaign and the Priorities USA Action said there was no coordination about Soptic’s appearances. In the campaign’s ad, Soptic speaks only about the plant. In the Priorities spot, he tells the personal story he relayed during the Obama campaign conference call.

“We have no idea when Priorities shot their spot,” an Obama campaign official said. “We’re not allowed to coordinate with them – but we can tell you it wasn’t when we shot ours.”

<...>

“You don’t know where they got the footage from,” Gross said. “They could have gotten it from a common vendor or not a common vendor. It could have been obtained without coordination. I doubt it was a direct transfer from the campaign to the group, Priorities USA.”

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/08/team-obama-says-they-dont-story-of-man-who-stars-of-131462.html?hp=l3_b3

Not the expert quoted is speculating, and still absolves the campaign. The article is designed to do one thing, raise questions about the ad. Is that the media's job? Maybe, but they seem to selectively apply the standard.

The campaign specifically states there was no coordination. The ads tell different stories.

The piece offers a partial quote to give the impression that Cutter denied knowing Soptic. It links to an article with the full quote:

“You do know that we don’t have anything to do with Priorities USA,” Cutter said on CNN’s “Starting Point.” “By law, we’re not allowed to coordinate with them, and by law, we don’t have anything to do with their ads. I don’t know the facts of when Joe’s wife got sick or when she died. But as I said before, I do know the facts of what Mitt Romney did with GS Steel. I do know the facts of how Joe lost his job and his health care. The entire company went bankrupt. But Mitt Romney walked away with a pretty hefty profit.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79476.html#ixzz236kCDgEM


Politico updated the piece:

UPDATE, 5:15 p.m.: Obama campaign Ben LaBolt responds: "As you know, we can’t coordinate with super PACs and didn’t produce the Priorities ad. Many workers around the country have a story to tell about what happened to their jobs and benefits when Mitt Romney and his partners made millions in profits by loading up companies up with debt, forcing them into bankruptcy. Joe Soptic suffered when he lost his job in the aftermath of the GST Steel plant closing, and no one is denying that he discussed that when he appeared in a campaign advertisement and on a conference call. The important point here is that Mitt Romney’s campaign is based solely on his experience as a corporate buyout specialist, and while he has been quick to claim he created jobs, he refuses to accept responsibility for the jobs that were lost and workers that were impacted."

The bottom line is that nothing in the article is false.

Here's a concrete and specific incidence of collusion. It gets a mention on CNN, but no one is making a huge issue of it.

First on CNN: Rove, Gillespie hosting joint political briefing in Aspen

Aspen, Colorado (CNN) – Despite laws barring coordination between federal campaigns and outside groups, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie are hosting a joint closed-door political briefing with leading Republican donors Thursday.

According to Republicans familiar with the schedule, the two operatives are headlining a lunchtime political briefing for top donors at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Aspen, a posh, closed-press affair where GOP governors mingle with some of their biggest financial backers.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/02/first-on-cnn-rove-gillespie-hosting-joint-political-briefing-in-aspen/


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