TalkingPointsMemo.Com Jumps The Fact Checking Shark

Posted by in Blog, Featured on September 7, 2012 9:34 am / 5 comments

The RNC put out an ad where a young woman is “breaking up” with Obama. Watch:

Pretty lighthearted ad. A little jab at President Hopey Changey. Right? Given some of the ads out this cycle, this was one of the mildest attack ads so far.

But not according to the DNC water carriers at TalkingPointsMemo.com! No, in their world, this ad was a gigantic lie.

Republicans debuted a new ad Thursday in which a frustrated former Obama supporter expresses her disappointment with the president. The only problem: The woman in the video is actually an RNC staffer.

They then go on to explain how the young woman is actually the head of the RNC’s Latino Outreach program, Bettina Inclan. SCANDAL!

This is particularly hilarious because not only is it obvious this ad never pretended to be an actual former Obama supporter, TalkingPointsMemo.com has absolutely no mention on its website of David Foster – the “former employee of a Bain controlled company” who has appeared in ads and actually spoke at the convention. Foster and the DNC actually tried to make it look like he worked at GST when he was a union rep and never worked there.

Weird, right?

TalkingPointsMemo just jumped the fact checking shark.

 
 

5 Comments

  1. steve says:
    September 7, 2012 at 2:48 pm

    The ad is dumb. If it was a real person, it might not be as dumb. But if it’s an actor, the ad is dumb.

    Dumber than Palin.

  2. Ric Caric says:
    September 7, 2012 at 7:44 pm

    Snark but verify.

  3. Mavrodaphne says:
    September 8, 2012 at 4:11 pm

    Weak argument for putting forth a lie… but certainly not surprising coming from the gop who admit they are not going to let their campaign be dictated by fact checkers.

  4. InterestedObserver says:
    September 9, 2012 at 8:25 am

    As a career marketing professional, I’m not as much outraged that the person in the as is misrepresented as a former Obama supporter as I’m bowled over by the sheer stupidity of that casting decision. No matter how partisans from either side care to parse the fact that it’s Bettina Inclan pretending to ‘break up’ with a president she surely never supported in the first place, the reaction from Democrats should have been a no-brainer to predict — so why tee the ball up like this for them? Surely there are some disappointed ’08 Obama supporters planning to vote Romney in ’12, why on earth would they not locate and use one in this production?

    From the inexplicable unforced errors on his overseas trip to the Clint Eastwood convention debacle and a number of smaller matters like this ad, I can’t help but get the sense that it’s an unending amateur hour at Romney’s campaign headquarters. Obama’s pulled slightly ahead with the expected convention bump, and both he and Biden are formidable debaters. Romney’s camp can’t afford to keep shooting themselves in the foot, especially in such easily avoidable ways.

  5. InterestedObserver says:
    September 9, 2012 at 8:26 am

    Apologies for the typo – that first line should obviously read “person in the ad”.

Post a Comment