It’s like these people don’t do any vetting at all.
Let me present to you the amazing amount of scrutiny that apparently needs to go into a Barack Obama campaign ad, just to understand what it actually means.
- Level Minus One. This is the scrutiny that is done by the creators of the ad itself (that is to say, none at all). Summary of said ad (second video at this Hot Air link): this Brian Slagle fellow from Ohio was in the auto industry; he got laid off; but he has a job, now; and thank God for that nice Obama fellow, who made it all possible.
- Level Zero. This was the scrutiny done by ABC News. They discovered that the company that Mr. Slagle works for now (Johnson Controls) apparently frittered away a lot of its stimulus money then; is actually laying off people now; and is currently being investigated for employee health violations. As in, lead poisoning. In other words; it’s not that great a job, and there’s some question about whether its employees are better off with the company still being in business. I mean. Lead poisoning.
- Level One. This is the scrutiny done by The Weekly Standard: in short, actual fact-checking. It turns out that Mr. Slagle has been employed by Johnson Controls… since 2006. This information could be found via the arcane method of “looking up Brian Slagle on Facebook:” the information has since been removed, but TWS took screenshots, of course. Translation: Brian Slagle did not actually get a new job from Obama’s stimulus program. They want you to think that he did, but he didn’t*.
All of which means that the actual message of the ad is “I had a job in the auto industry until about six years ago… and then I got a new job. Which is apparently one with a bad environmental and fiscal record, but that doesn’t matter! That’s because Barack Obama really, really needs me to get on the screen and tell you how great it is for me as a spectator to see the auto industry get bailed out. So I figure that I’m golden… oh, crud, Facebook. But… they promised me that Republicans couldn’t read!”
Which, admittedly, doesn’t really sing as a campaign message.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*This is, by the way, what campaigns do when they don’t actually have anything useful to run on.
Wait… the only jobs available are from state-run industries with poor environmental records… I’ve heard this story before…
The part that frustrates me here is that there are a lot of people out there. It shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who’s career path actually matched the narative exactly. Unforced errors are sometimes hard to watch, even from the other team. Maybe there’s a lot of pressure to get these things out as fast as possible and hope noone checks your work.
JeffV, ISTR the Obama crew had some similar crank-stepping moments in 2008. They really, really depend on the press not digging too deep and burying the exposure of their lies.
I was going to post this on FB to show the baloney in the Obama add (as I am not a fan) but after watching the ad, I hesitate, because the only thing in question is whether or not he was ever laid off. It doesn’t matter if he was hired in 2006, since it didn’t say or suggest Obama got him a job, it says Obama saved his job and hes back to work now. (well it strongly infers this). If he was never laid off, not even for a day, then the ad is BS, but I don’t know that anyone (weekly standard or otherwise) has looked into that.
Facts are unimportant when we have so much Hope&Change!
Fake Indians, fake auto workers. Who knew?
Am I the only one who thinks Obama’s no serious enough about the election to pull crap like this? It’s clear he doesn’t care what people think because one way or the other, he’s staying in office. He’s using dependency, fear, racial and class divisions to exploit the public and an army of extra-legal goons (TSA, DEA, IRS) to enforce his power.
You who think the guy’s incompetent, stupid or lazy had better wake up. Obama and his SS and SA know exaclty what they’re doing and they don’t care what voters think about it.
Washington Post — print an 11 page story on obama’s drug use. I want an interview from drug pushers, and friendly drug users that were obama’s friends.
The real test will be if a properly cogent Mitt Romney can take gaffes like this one and hit them out of the freakin’ park during the debates. I mean, I want him to go for the juglar. I want Obama to come off that stage with a look on his face like Loki after his run-in with Hulk. Yes, yes, nerdalicious, but it’s apt.
Isn’t Johnson Controls building a new plant in China? Does the Administration also get credit for exporting more jobs?
So, Johnson Controls is being investigated for Lead Poisoning. Which could mean anything. Is EPA enforcement leading to this guy losing his job now?
If the dead Media would get off their knees and do minimum reporting they might survive the great dissolution but they DO NOT CARE they are teenagers in love!
If they know the press isn’t going to dig deep, why spend time and money on delivering better quality. Makes perfect business sense to me.
Obama saved your job! Every single on of them. Millions and millions of jobs were saved by his brilliance. If you’re pulling a paycheck you should be on your knees thanking Obamessiah for rescuing it from the clutches of the most terrible, sinister, dreadful, abhorrent, shocking, and severe recession since the great depression. It was so bad that it went past being a depression and full circle back into a recession. Sort of like a worm hole of economic calamity turning back in on itself. In fact, it was so vile it’s easy for us to forget just how terrible it really was/is/could be. [sarc]
“Just making stuff up”? We found a shorter way to say that around here: We just say “You lie”.