Karl Rove, seen here denying
oft-repeated charges of rampant drug use
Karl Rove continues to mount a valiant effort in his efforts to claim the title of "most dishonest man in politics." That's a high bar to meet, but he's doing his very best. There was
this, and also
this one, and
now we've got another to add to the pile:
Here’s the latest, an ad hammering Dem Senate candidate Tim Kaine in Virginia. It’s the third ad Crossroads has released in this week alone containing clear distortions or even outright lies: [...]
[T]he ad suggests that the stimulus Kaine supported spent $39 million on “office upgrades for politicians.” That sounds terribly wasteful! But this claim has already been thoroughly debunked — the last time Crossroads made it, in an ad in 2010. PolitiFact looked at the assertion and noted it was based on a project to renovate the Kansas State Capital, but concluded the money is not direct funding; instead it comes from a stimulus bond program to help local governments save money on capital projects. Politifact pronounced the claim “mostly false” — nearly a year ago. Crossroads is now airing it again anyway.
The new ad also claims that under Governor Kaine, Virginia ran “a big deficit.” But the Associated Press politely pointed out that the ad made this assertion “erroniously,” noting that the state constitution forbids finishing a “fiscal year with insufficient funds.”
All right, so we have yet another ad from the Rove shop that contains numerous false statements. It's not accidental, it's a pattern. They're doing it on purpose—Rove, that is, is doing it on purpose.
No surprises there, right? The only question is, what on earth can be done about it? It's not like it's going to cost Rove clients: On the contrary, he's risen to star status as a Republican player precisely because he's willing to come up with flat-out lies against whoever it is people want him to oppose. That's why people pay him money. It's not like he cares if the press calls him out on it.
He might care if individual stations reject his ads, but that's a fairly ridiculous proposition: Individual outlets can spot the most egregious stuff, but not everything. And for every outlet that rejects his advertisement money (not likely) 10 more will let it through unimpeded.
There's no good answer here. The political sphere is uninterested in policing itself or purging crooked members. Free speech dictates broad leeway for political claims. It would be lovely to subject false political advertisements to even the same haphazard punishments that false advertising for any other product (pills, dish soap, gold-buying schemes) are subjected to, but that's unlikely.
What matters most is that political lies are a very easy way to move public opinion, since 90 percent of the public is never going to here the subsequent corrections from fact-checkers or other watchdogs. Want to say your opponent is an ax murderer? Go for it. He'll be branded as an ax murderer for at least some of the voting public, and that's all that matters.
Convicted pedophile and Unibomber accomplice Karl Rove knows this. That's why he does it.