Did Romney Ohio Auto Ad Line Cross the Media Line? Damaging Backlash Ahead?
One of the most surprising — and to many of us who are political junkies and/or who worked or work in the news media shocking — features of the 2012 campaign has been the extent to which not only doesn’t accuracy not matter any more in politics but the way Mitt Romney’s campaign gives a half a peace sign to fact-checking. This isn’t just the usual fudging of facts, or the kind of rascally behavior that elicits those smug, amused looks from the political pros on the Sunday shows. This is something deeper.
You’ve almost wondered when the Romney campaign could cross a line and if any line exists.
It turns out it may have and a line does seemingly exist. It was over an ad that made a patently false, not true and I never use the word but I will: lying…assertion, about Jeep exporting jobs to China. DETAILS HERE including a video of the ad.
This isn’t a small matter for Americans of both parties or no party. A kid can’t be raised properly without know about boundaries and consequences and for the sake of future American campaigns there have to be some boundaries and consequences in an issue such as this.
The danger for Team Romney is if the story becomes about how his ad is patently false it then is unveiled in the context of boilerplate background about what Romney did on the auto bailout and the (in)famous Op-Ed that he wrote. It puts his past assertions right back on the campaign plate.
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Stupid and false ad, Mitt and his team deserve to be severely criticized.
I agree he and his team deserve to be severely criticized, but I will believe it when I see it. They have been getting away with it so far, so why not see how far they can go.
Will we remember this as the election that Frickenlies created the Frankenstorm?
I hold the belief that all is interconnected and a disturbance in one field effects others…Sat the tell in of this campaign could there be anything less than a Frankenstorm?
Storm disturbance:
At the tail in of this campaign
Things like this, and so many, many other actions, comments, and inconsistencies by the Romney Campaign, are why I truly believe that President Obama is going to win both the Electoral AND the Popular vote by a landslide.
A lot of good people are doing the “Republican Growl” and it makes Romney’s numbers look better than they really are. Why are they still growling? Because they’re Republicans and that’s what Republicans do just like Democrats doing the “Democrat Growl” it just comes natural.
But while growling they are seeing what’s being said and done by Romney and the RNC, a group who obviously doesn’t like Romney either. They don’t like the dishonesty or deception and I believe that in the privacy of the growl free voting booth they will vote for President Obama… Because they know that it’s the right thing to do.
If thats the line then both campaigns have crossed it long ago. Sure it’s deceptive but you can pick many examples from either side so picking out one that is even vaguely true as being past it…………. well it makes me wonder and make this post seem just more partisan rhetoric than much else. Mind you I’m not saying that is what was intended, just the outrage, so to speak, seems to fall a bit flat.
let’s hope the Ohio and Pennsylvania voters send Mittens a message. Pack up and go to your SD mansion.
EE, just curious, give me an example of an obama ad that is plane flat-out false. (I’m not saying there isn’t one out there, just wondering what you are referring to)
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/disgusting-pro-obama-ad-criticized-by-democrat/
http://washingtonexaminer.com/fact-check-obama-attack-ad-has-so-much-deceit-here-we-hardly-know-where-to-start/article/2504591#.UI7cemcpD7M
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/09/priorities-usa-action/pro-obama-group-blames-romney-womans-death/
Thanks dd. The three examples cited (a woman dying from cancer after losing her insurance) were for the same ad which was put out by Priorities USA, not by the obama campaign. Nor do I believe obama made it a part of his stump speech.
You can fool people some of the time, but you can fool them all of the time.
MSNBC, Jon Stewart and possibly Colbert will cover it. But Fox, CNN, and the networks won’t touch it with a 10ft pole. They will bury it. Same old..same old. One reason he gets away with it is because he is heavily protected by some “mysterious” force..namely that of the mainstream media.( and people call it the lamestream media..when it shows Obama in a positive light). He has some powerful friends ( backers) in those corporate giants and they won’t let him down.
Y, fine, don’t like those, find your own.
Msm won’t touch it because they are more worried about being viewed as nonpartisan than they are about being journalists.
LOL..that’s never stopped them before. If you ever listened to the debate recaps on MSNBC, they couldn’t be more partisan. ( or clearsighted as I like to call them):)
Maybe the Duck can find some lying Obamama ads at StormFront.
It’s pretty clear that Romney has even less respect for the truth than most people, maybe even less than most politicians. His rationale is expediency in his goal of getting elected president, damn the truth and anything else. Once he has the office, what will he do? I certainly can’t guess since his goal will be accomplished and therefore his guiding compass will be gone.
For a readable review of the bailout, see this.
Hi Moderate. Good insight. My guess is that once he has the office ( IF), he will do what he has always planned to do. Let the right wing Republicans tell him what to do.!
Also forgot the corporate lobbyists and the wealthy plutocrats.
I’m sure someone can explain to me how this was different:
http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/
Because we know that Obama’s not a heinous liar like Romney is, right?
And before I’m accused of making a “both sides do it argument”, I’ll point out that I am posting this in part because someone upthread asked for a comparable lie from the Pbama campaign, and also because it goes to the ridiculous assertion made in the OP that Romney has crossed the line and is more untruthful than other politicians.
Of course you have a point C. Both sides lie. We all know that..even expect it. That’s the nature of politics, it’s a dirty game. The difference is that Romney does it so poorly AND unashamedly. If that weren’t the case there wouldn’t be so many people on both sides just disgusted by it. The press have a field day, the Rep party spends more time on damage control than deciding which image he should project next, and the people are albeit not convinced,at least AWARE of it.
I don’t quite understand, SK. Has Obama shown remorse for the distortions and lies that his team has put out? ((That would go to your point about Romney doing this unashamedly.) Is Obama more skillful at lying (which would go to your point about Romney lying poorly?)
In other words, what you wrote does not make sense. Either these instances are roughly similar, in which case Romney is not only not the lyin’est liar evah but he’s not even distinct from his competitor….or these things are not roughly similar (an argument you aren’t making although I suspect others will find a way to parse that.)
These are rhetorical questions, BTW, meant to get people to question this narrative….because that is what I think it is. An attempt to paint Romney as unfit for office, in order to protect a weak incumbent.
Great logic C. but first I am interested in the lies and distortions you spoke of. ( I have seen a number of fact checks on him , not entirely flattering, some partial truths, some misrepresented facts etc.) Since I have already conceded that all politicians lie, I take it you are }upset” with articles like this and comments like this because you feel that Romney should be allowed to skate if the other fellow is doing it. But I think the reason people are writing these articles, and others like us are taking umbrage is because we feel our intelligence is being insulted by this man. Look, he is print, he has been recorded on record and he has been videotaped saying one thing one minute. and something else the next. If Obama is lying too, then yes, he is MUCH better at it. At least he isn’t insulting us all with his flip-flopping.
No one should be allowed to “skate”. Both should be held to a reasonable standard without the hyperbole.
Since this article was about one particular ad, I responded with a similar one from the Obama campaign. I have neither the time nor the interest in going tit for tat, as it will convince no one. My point is simply to show that the example being used, of this recent Romney ad, is actually quite run of the mill and comparable to the ad used against Romney for being culpable in outsourcing of US jobs. Both were debunked for very similar reasons. So why the outrage over this one, but not the other? And what is it about this ad that triggered this sinister tone, as though we’re seeing some new scary level of dishonesty?
I will only add, C, that this ad by Romney is false. The car company involved has said that it’s false, and yet, despite this, Romney is still using this falsehood in his stump speeches. It rankles becuase of who Romney is. Severely conservative during the primaries, moderate mitt during the first two debates, and a dove during the third. He can change positions in the same sentence. You can’t trust or believe anything he says becuase NO ONE knows what he believes. No one knows what he will do once in office. Romney just wants to call himself president and will do whatever and say whatever it takes to get there. This ad is just the proverbial straw on the camel’s back.
Yoop generally I agree that the ad was misleading (there is a bloomberg article that came out yesterday i think which clouds things further because it stated that the Chrysler management is considering the production of Jeeps in Italy, for export to the N. American market….because the Italian govt is trying to entice this with export tax breaks.) if that is accurate, then Romney’s original stumpmstatement was wrong to say they were moving all their production there, but They may be planning to only expand in Europe in the future rather than US (which goes to Romney’s argument that selling Chrysler to an Italian company may not have been in the best interest of US autoworkers.)
For the purpose of this discussion though, I’ll agree that the ad probably wasn’t based in fact, because at best all of this is based on speculation of what the company will do in the future. I think it’s silly though to say that the claims are debunked by the Chrysler denials, because it isn’t in their interest to publicly proclaim that they are shifting to EU production, if in fact they are going to do that. They will want US consumers to think of them as pro-American.
Now to the politics of this….i simply (and emphatically) disagree that the Romney campaign has representing anything other than politics as usual…and in fact I think Obama’s shifts from his 2008 persona and campaign promises have been just as dramatic. Many on the left see this too….it’s not as though it is just right wingers being concern trolls by pointing out the rank negativity, and that Obama had to run this as a smear the opponent rather than running on record campaign. The contrast between Obama’s own criticisms of negativity in politics and this cycle’s rhetoric, are nothing less than stunning.
Of course Romney has given plenty of ammunition for Obama to run a negative campaign….mainly because he’s a moderate who needed to secure the base of his party. Again, like it or not, that’s politics as usual. It’s quite easy to portray pragmatism and moderation as flip flopping, lack of core, and pandering.
I don’t see this as anything other than one more “pants on fire” misstatement. Obama has 8 of them (in 2 elections) and Romney has 17 according to Politico (not including this one, if it is one). If someone is willing to vote for a candidate regardless of his veracity, who we to object? They all do it so we shouldn’t consider the totality of their mendacity should we? It’s not like we are weighting the lies by importance are we?
Absolutely The_Ohioan… Some seem not to have “a line to cross” or if they do it only applies to the other side.
To many the character and competence (of lack thereof) of a candidate have no bearing on whether they are willing to vote for them, it’s the “R” or the “D” after their name that counts.