You ever have that feeling when you make a prediction about something but in the back of your mind you hope it doesn’t really come true? Yeah, that’s where I’m at after this little beauty of a prediction. From the post Are you smarter than a campaign manager? back on May 20 I wrote this, “Anyone looking for the level of campaign discourse to be raised is in for a big disappointment.”
The campaign of President Obama is making me look like Nostradamus. The post that quote is from details how the President’s campaign people kept opening what they believe to be cans of whupp-ass on the Governor, but turn out to be big cans of worms instead. Every ridiculous charge they made against Gov. Romney over the summer was contradicted by the fact their guy, aka the President, had done something of equal or greater numb-nuttiness. I won’t rehash it all, you can re-read it of you like. Just click the link above.
Well the gang isn’t done. I guess they feel like we have not properly appreciated the level of stupidity they can rise too. However in this case to add to the degree of difficulty they have coupled stupidity with outright shamefulness.
At issue: a democratic super pac ad run by Priorities USA in which an older man, Joe Soptic, tells the tale of how Bain Capital, Romney’s Bain Capital, bought the failing steel mill where Joe worked and shut it down, causing the loss of Joe’s health care. Some unspecified time later his wife became ill, Joe took her to the doctor and found out she had stage 4 cancer. She died 22 days later. Joe implies in the ad that the illness occurred almost seconds after Romney personally called to cancel Joe’s health insurance.
In the ad Joe implies that his wife was probably sick a lot longer then she let on, but he figures she kept quite because they could not afford the insurance. He claims he had no idea how long she was sick. The ad concludes with Joe saying he believes Romney has no idea what he has done to him and the lives of thousands of Americans. I didn’t need it explained to me. Joe is implying that Romney killed his wife. Bill Burton, former Obama deputy press secretary and head of Priorities USA and author of the ad is implying Romney killed Joe’s wife. The President, by not only staying silent on this hatchet job, but then co-opting part of that ad for his own campaign to use, is saying Romney killed Joe’s wife. This was roughly but more eloquently the same conclusion that most political pundits on the airwaves and social media came to.
The only thing that killed Joe’s wife is cancer. The steel mill in question went under in 2001. A lot of steel mills went under in 2001. Bain offered Joe a buyout but he refused it. Romney was off organizing the olympics when all this went down so I’m not sure how he even figures into this. Oh that’s right the President’s new strategy is to lie his pants off before they catch fire.
Joe’s wife was diagnosed and died in 2006, the plant closed in 2001. By most accounts it would have closed then or before 2001 had Bain not propped it up long enough to realize some profit from it. In other words, Joe was losing his job one way or another, but he could have made some money had he taken the buyout, he refused. Had Bain not bought the plant and it closed in 2000 or earlier, Joe would not have even had an offer of a buyout. Once more, Joe’s wife had a job and insurance through 2003. So she must have become ill after that time, some 2 years down range from when the plant closed.
The lies, falsehoods, faulty implications and outright made up BS in this ad would take pages and pages to unravel. Suffice to say, the President and his campaign people have decided there is no bar low enough they can’t slink under, if it means falsely accusing Governor Romney of murder in an attempt to stay in office.
That was the Shameful. Now for the stupid.
This attack opens the President up to countless charges of murder. It’s the same nonsense as with the dog, and the bullying. The President is guilty of far worse then what his team accuses Gov. Romney of. In this case however, the President can actually be linked to murder. It took all of 5 minutes for right wing bloggers to bring up the story of the border patrol agent Bryan Terry killed by a gun used in the failed Fast and Furious operation run by the current White House administration. See this: Red State
Why on earth would you do that if you were the Presidents election team? How could they not see what the counter attack would be and avoid it? It stagers the mind of even the most meager intellectuals among us.
The summer of stupid is just getting warmed up I’m afraid. Don’t even get me started on the fake christian solidarity over some chicken samiches. I don’t have time, I have to protest the presence of synchronized swimming at the olympics. What fast food chain would one go to protest something like that?
Five Guys I hope.