Truth In Advertising

This just makes me SICK. It is one thing to make attack ads that twist the truth and take comments out of context, but it is an entirely despicable and new trash tactic to now make attack ads based solely on what you think the other party will eventually have to do in the future, regardless of what that party has said it would do. Keep with me here.

In light of the attacks ads that McCain has been running with flat out falsehoods and lies there have been many, many news organizations (AP, McClatchy, CNN, Wash Post) that have contacted the McCain campaign to ask why certain ads have absolutely no truth to them. The McCain campaign response to these inquiries--the McCain campaign argues in its documentation for these attack ads that, whatever Obama says he would do, he will eventually be forced to break his promises and, for example raise taxes more broadly to pay for his promised spending programs or that.

Read that again. McCain says that regardless of what Obama says he will do, “we THINK he will not do that and that he will do XYZ instead and that XYZ is what we say it is. That is ludicrous, that is pure opinion on McCain’s part, there is no fact to what McCain thinks Obama will do, but McCain’s attack ads don't say that. Instead, the ads simply put forward the McCain camp's OPINION as a FACT, and the ads fail to alert viewers that the claims are based on what the McCain campaign THINKS MIGHT happen in the future. Passing off your own opinion of what you think someone might do is not a fact, and to present your opinion in an ad and claim it to be someone’s actions is beyond despicable. Even Karl Rove has stated that McCain’s ads are untruthful.

This “my opinion of what someone will do regardless of what the truth is” has worked so well for the McCain campaign that the campaign has gotten other allies to use the same logic in their attack ads on Obama.

The NRA is circulating printed material and running TV ads making utterly false claims that Obama plans to ban firearms for home defense, ban possession and manufacture of handguns, close 90 percent of gun shops and ban hunting ammunition. That is complete BS.

Much of what the NRA passes off as Obama's "10 Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment" is actually contrary to what he has said throughout his campaign: that he "respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms" and "will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns." 

The NRA, however, simply dismisses Obama's stated position as "rhetoric" and substitutes its own interpretation of his record as a secret "plan." Said an NRA spokesman: "We believe our facts."

Read that again. "We believe our facts." What facts? How is the NRA interpretation of what Obama said, especially when that interpretation is completely opposite “facts”! This is totally absurd.