The Voice of Reason: How Low Will Obama Go?

We've all seen the clever television ads in which someone who doesn't have DirecTV ends up in a  ridiculous situation.

In one ad, a man who doesn't have DirecTV becomes depressed.  Then he sees a self-help guru.  Next he becomes so confident after seeing the expert that he heads to Vegas.  Then he gambles and loses everything.  Because he loses everything, he sells his hair.  The message at the end is, "Don't sell your hair.  Get DirecTV."

The new Barack Obama Super PAC "cancer" television ad is THAT ridiculous in connecting one event to another in order try to blame presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney for a woman's death from cancer.  The problem is that this ad is deplorable and completely misleading.   This ad is probably the most despicable political ad in American political history, as it attempts to take advantage of one woman's cancer death for one man's political advantage.  Pathetic.

The messages (direct and implied) in the ObamaSuper PAC ad are something like this:

1. Romney and Bain Capital buy GST Steel.
2. GST Steel goes bankrupt.
3. Employee Joe Soptic loses his health care insurance through GST Steel.
4. Soptic's wife gets sick and dies 22 days later.
5. Romney doesn't care and is to blame for the woman's death.
6. Don't vote for Romney.

To paint Romney with the worst brush possible, the ad does not provide an accurate representation of the timeline of events.  To make things even worse, the ad leaves out important facts that together with the timeline tell an entirely different story.  In a nutshell, here's what really happened:

1. Romney and Bain Capital buy troubled GST Steel and save it from bankruptcy.
2. Romney leaves Bain Capital to run the Olympics.
3. Because of the dumping of foreign steel and high union costs, GST Steel goes bankrupt two years after Romney leaves Bain Capital.
4. Joe Soptic loses his health insurance when he loses his job.
5. Soptic's wife continues to have health insurance through her job a year or two after GST Steel goes bankrupt.
6. She quits her job because of an accident and loses her health insurance.
7. Soptic gets another job but decides not to put his wife on his health insurance because of costs.
8. Seven years after Romney left Bain Capital and five years after GST's bankruptcy, Soptic's wife is diagnosed with cancer and dies 22 days after she is diagnosed.

That's a much different story, isn't it?  It's interesting how the timeline and important details such as the fact that Soptic's wife had her own health insurance after GST Steel went through bankruptcy, that Romney had left Bain Capital seven years before Soptic's wife died, and that Soptic didn't put his wife on his  health insurance aren't mentioned in the ad, isn't it? 

This ad clearly is "gutter" politics, the type of advertising that doesn't simply stretch the truth, it completely avoids the truth, as it tries to take advantage of one woman's death to try to smearthe opposition candidate. The people supporting President Obama's reelection who are behind this ad apparently have no ethics or morals and wouldn't know the truth if it hits them straight between the eyes.  The person leading this Super PAC just happens to be the former Deputy Press Secretary for President Obama.  There are additional close connections between the White House and representatives of this Super Pac, so the President and his staff clearly can't distance themselves from this horrific attack ad.

When Americans learn the truth behind this ad, I have a strong feeling that instead of the ad damaging Romney's reputation, which was the original purpose of the ad, the advertisement will create an unbearable stench of distrust, suspicion and resentment around the entire Obama Campaign.  And it should.

When that happens, this ad will become very, very effective.  For Mitt Romney. 

But if the Obama Campaign is releasing this type of ad three weeks before Labor Day, one has to wonder: How low will President Obama stoop to try to be reelected?