Smoking Politics

Steve Benen and Greg Sargent have written some pretty sharp and strong posts about Karl Rove’s Crossroads group and the ads they have been running, one of which is so blatantly false that it’s been taken off the air.

From Steve’s article, here is the low-down on the ‘claim’ of that ad that ran against Jon Tester.

In it, Tester is accused of supporting an Environmental Protection Agency rule — a rule that was never in fact proposed — to regulate farm dust. But the vote that the ad cites actually had nothing to do with dust or the EPA; it was a procedural vote on a measure aimed at cracking down on China for manipulating currency.

The poster child for the lack of fact-based politicking this cycle of course has been Michelle Bachmann who keeps saying things that are blatantly false and then really doesn’t bat an eye when corrected and just keeps going.

Steve and Greg’s articles detail the claims far better than I could, but I wanted to step back and look at how this clearly showcases the marketing strategy Dave and I have been writing about for five years. And how, with the downfall of traditional media, it’s getting worse and worse.

Imagine for a moment you were going to advertise a product, you were in charge of creating an advertising campaign for a car. Now, your car was slower, more expensive and used more gas than any other car. You’d kind of start wondering how to advertise this car right? Not if you are Karl Rove.

You know that you can claim this car is the ‘fastest in its class’ and maybe you would. And no one calls you on it. No one says ‘that is false.’ Sure people grumble and moan so feeling a bit emboldened, next year when the new model comes out, it’s “fastest in its class” and it’s “less than any competitor.” Now a simple fact check would show this to be false but you know, no one checks the facts.

A few years later, you can only imagine the advertising for this car. It will improve your sex life, cost next to nothing and cure cancer on the side.

The Right are becoming gluttons of disinformation and false claims. They are living high on the hog because after the success of the Swift Boat Veterans which compared to the Tester ad above seems like fact-based reporting, at least John Kerry was actually in Vietnam, the far right is going farther and farther afield from the facts.

Remember Sarah Palin’s false claim about Paul Revere?

The one that:

Even Chris Wallace cannot help laughing at this preposterous grifter. But creepier still is the fact that her cult followers responded to this perfectly predictable gaffe by trying to edit the Wikipedia entry on Revere to align it with Palin’s ramblings about his “warning the British” that … oh, let’s not even bother.

Check out this surreal Wiki page in which the cultists are trying to insist that Revere did indeed warn the British, and use Palin’s own quote as a source!

So now, this is the ultimate example of facts not matter. Caught saying something that is absolutely factually wrong, and clearly caught, well, then instead of admitting you are wrong, let’s change the fact.

Voter Emptor.