Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney’s first ad a deliberate lie, campaign confirms it

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Is Willard "Mittens" Romney engaging in a form of Lying for the Lord? ("Lying for the Lord" is a tenet of the Mormon faith that gives Mormons the "right to lie," so long as it's a lie to protect the image of and belief in the Mormon religion). Mittens apparently has expanded upon this tenent to include running for president of the United States. I wonder what the LDS elders would have to say about this.

Greg Sargent writes, Romney camp: Misrepresenting opponent’s words is completely fair game – The Plum Line:

the Romney campaign is airing an ad in New Hampshire that plucks Obama’s words out of context in a comically dishonest way. Obama is shown seeming to acknowledge that talking about the economy is a political loser for him, when in reality, he was quoting a John McCain adviser making that claim. The ad is now being widely pilloried as false.

Now CBS News has gotten a new response from the Romney camp justifying the ad:

Romney senior New Hampshire adviser Tom Rath tells CBS News the ad is “exactly what we want.”

“They were using McCain’s words to make fun of McCain. And we’re using the exact same technique,” he said.

Pressed on whether it was unfair to lop off the top of Mr. Obama’s comments — which would show the president was quoting the McCain camp — Rath said, “He did say the words. That’s his voice.”

He then suggesting that the more people discuss the ad, the better it is for the Romney campaign.

This is a truly remarkable response. The Romney camp is explicitly saying it’s totally fair game to take an opponent’s words out of context in a way that completely changes their meaning, simply because the actual words in question did come out of the speaker’s mouth. As many have noted today, the Romney ad’s decontextualizing of Obama’s words is so egregious that it amounts to a lie. Yet here a Romney adviser is claiming that this is fair game, because he said those words.

Today Think Progress released a new video lampooning the Romney ad with footage of Romney himself torn out of context. It shows Romney saying things like “we should just raise everybody’s taxes,” and “there’s nothing unique about the United States.” Obviously Romney was really saying the opposite of those things. But as Think Progress notes, those depictions are “accurate, according to the Romney standard of accuracy.”

This was meant as a joke. But now a Romney adviser has confirmed that this is, in fact, the Romney standard of accuracy.

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One other point. As Jed Lewison notes today, it won’t matter that Romney’s ad is broadcasting a blatant lie, because media outlets have not been willing to come right out and call Romney a liar. Here you have a Romney adviser basically confirming this, claiming that the media attention to the ad is a positive. One wonders whether this open and explicit admission that the Romney camp is using the media will be enough to prompt more aggressive coverage of its pattern of mendacity.

Steve Benen piles on at the Political Animal – ‘That’s his voice’:

To briefly recap, Mitt Romney’s very first television ad of the 2012 campaign pushes a blatant, shameless lie. In 2008, a month before the president was elected, then-candidate Obama told voters, “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’” In Romney’s new attack ad, viewers only see part of the quote: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”

It’s a cheap, deceitful move, suggesting Romney wants to get his general-election strategy off to as dishonorable a start as possible. And what’s the Republican campaign’s response? It’s a doozy.

Romney senior New Hampshire adviser Tom Rath tells CBS News the ad is “exactly what we want.” […]

Pressed on whether it was unfair to lop off the top of Mr. Obama’s comments — which would show the president was quoting the McCain camp — Rath said, “He did say the words. That’s his voice.” 

There’s no way around this — the argument is just blisteringly stupid. Yes, Obama said those words, and yes, that’s the president’s voice, but the whole point of the controversy is that Romney wrenched the words from context, changing the meaning and deceiving the public.

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ABC News’ Jake Tapper said of Romney’s ad, “[I]t’s not just misleading. It’s TV-station-refuse-to-air-it-misleading.”

Agreed. Romney’s willingness to lie to voters raises important questions about his integrity, but the question now becomes whether television stations will participate in the lie by airing a spot that’s proven to be deceptive.

Mitten's first TV ad of the 2012 presidential campaign sparked immediate denunciations Monday night from President Obama's reelection campaign, which rightly complained that the ad was "a deceitful and dishonest attack." Obama Campaign Blasts Romney's First TV Ad As 'Deceitful':

Obama's reelection campaign spokesman Ben Labolt called the Romney ad "a deceitful and dishonest attack."

"While the President brought us back from the brink of another depression and is fighting everyday to restore economic security for the middle class, Mitt Romney opposes the President's plan to create 2 million jobs and instead proposes a return to the same economic policies that led to the recession," Labolt said in an email to The Huffington Post.

When asked by The Huffington Post,  Romney's communications director Gail Gitcho maintained the ad was not out of bounds. "We are using candidate Obama's 2008 campaign tactic against him," Gitcho said in an e-mail.

So this shameless shape-shifter intends to lie his way to the White House. Mittens Romney is entirely lacking character. He does not deserve to be elected a hall monitor at Baine Capital let alone president of the United States.