Campaign Ads: Dishonest or Defamatory?

An article in today's Los Angeles Times tries to equate two recent campaign ads--one put out by an Obama Super PAC called Priorities USA and the other by the Romney campaign--by suggesting that both ads are "dishonest." The writer (David Lauter) dissects both ads and identifies the dishonest points as determined by independent fact-checkers.

The Priorities USA ad features a man named Joe Soptic who blames Bain Capital, and by extension, Mitt Romney, for his wife's death from cancer after Joe lost his health insurance when his company went bankrupt. The ad has been completely debunked, even by mainstream media outlets, and the Obama administration itself has tried (unsuccessfully) to distance itself from these outrageous claims. Yet though the ad is steeped in falsehoods, has nothing to do with policy or agenda, and amounts to nothing more than defamation of character, no one's pulling the ad, let alone apologizing. The message is all that matters. It gets the job done, end of story.

The Romney ad, by contrast, criticizes Obama for "quietly gutting welfare reform" by dropping the work requirements that were put in place during the Clinton administration. Critics of this ad are saying that Obama is doing nothing of the sort and that Romney is manufacturing "faux outrage." Unlike the "cancer ad" put out by Priorities USA, which attacked Mitt Romney personally, calling him, essentially, a murderer, this ad attacks a legislative action taken by the Obama administration. Welfare reform, which received bipartisan support back in the day when such a thing was actually possible, was a very big deal, and Obama's actions deserve scrutiny. This is definitely fair game, and doesn't even begin to sink to the level of "dishonesty" that the Priorities USA ad did.

Nevertheless, David Lauter equates them on one criterion alone: whether or not the ads are honest. His implied conclusion? Both campaigns lie, both teams play dirty, lying is par for the course (hey, LBJ used similar tactics to discredit Barry Goldwater), and even if your ad is considered devious, at least it's getting the job done. Not surprisingly, this being the LA Times, Lauter leaves the reader with the impression that Romney's team plays dirtier than Obama's team. Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith even gets the last word: "Mitt Romney...is currently running an ad that a former president and authors of the welfare-to-work legislation have called a flat-out lie. When the Romney campaign finally reaches the high ground, we look forward to greeting them there."

Sorry. Not buying any of this.

First, as I already said, there's absolutely no comparison between these two particular ads. One slanders the opponent, the other challenges his opponent's actions.

But second, the idea that Romney's criticism of what the Obama administration did in allowing states to be exempt from the welfare-to-work requirements is valid. Lauter says it's not, but his support comes from the administration's own announcement, and then cites five states who have requested to be exempt, including two with Republican governors (as if that settles the matter). A more fleshed out discussion was aired this past Thursday night on the PBS News Hour between Peter Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University, and Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation who actually helped craft the 1996 welfare reform program.

Here's an excerpt of their discussion, beginning with Robert Rector, who responds to Judy Woodruff's question about how he views Mitt Romney's recent criticisms of Obama's actions: