The Koch brothers have picked a fight with former Sen. Russ Feingold, current candidate for his old seat, that they just keep losing. They've already had one deceptive ad pulled by Wisconsin television stations in which they accuse Feingold of ignoring a whistleblower's 2009 report of problems with overprescription of opioids at the Tomah VA Medical Center that led to the preventable deaths of several veterans. The problem for the Kochs is that the memo was never sent to Feingold.
The Kochs recut the ad to try to keep the accusation alive, but are still lying. This time they're showing a memo from 2008 that has a handwritten notation saying it was hand delivered to Feingold (no indication that it was received), but that memo doesn't have anything to do with the opioid problem—instead it accuses the hospital's then-chief of staff, David Houlihan, of creating a hostile work environment.
What they keep doing with these deceptive ads is opening up Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican they're backing, to further attacks from Feingold. Because, as Feingold happily continues to point out, Johnson’s staff did receive the memos about the painkillers and the dead veterans and Johnson has admitted that they were ignored. And he has a really lame excuse for it. That's the focus of yet another ad from the Feingold campaign, talking about how the ad from the Kochs was pulled, and featuring a Wisconsin vet who says "on veterans, Ron Johnson is not telling the truth." (Watch the whole ad below the fold.)
Narrator: "On Tomah, it was Johnson who failed. Veteran complaints changed hands from one Johnson aide to another in a congressional black hole. Johnson just made excuses."
Johnson: "had this not occurred during an election cycle… when there's an awful lot of turnover… when people are looking at doing job interviews and stuff…"
It's that "and stuff" that is really the killer here.
Every time the Kochs try to use this issue, they give Feingold another opportunity to use it. You might think that they'd quit now, before burying Johnson any deeper on it, but they've got millions and millions of dollars to burn, so they'll keep throwing it down the hole they're digging for Johnson.
Please give $3 to help Russ Feingold stand up for Wisconsin again.